252 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



Still the brute kept on. Any one who thinks pigs are 

 easy to kill ought to try the ones in Shansi! The sow 

 weighed well over three hundred pounds, and it required 

 six men to carry the two pigs into camp. We got no 

 more, although we saw two others, but still we felt 

 that the day had not been ill spent. As long as I live 

 I shall never forget Smith's hurdle race after that old 

 sow. 



Although I killed two roebuck, the next day I re- 

 turned to camp with rage in my heart. Smith and I had 

 separated late in the afternoon, and I was hunting with 

 an old Chinese when we discovered three pigs — a huge 

 boar, a sow, and a shote — crossing an open hill. Crawl- 

 ing on my face, I reached a rock not seventy yards from 

 the animals. At the first shot the boar pitched over the 

 bluff into a tangle of thorns, squealing wildly. My 

 second bullet broke the shoulder of the sow, and I had 

 a mad chase through a patch of scrub, but finally lost 

 her. 



When I returned to get the big boar I discovered my 

 Chinese squatted on his haunches in the ravine. He 

 blandly informed me that the pig could not be f oimd. I 

 spent the half hour of remaining daylight burrowing in 

 the thorn scrub without success. I learned later that 

 the native had concealed the dead pig under a mass of 

 stones and that during the night he and his confreres 

 had carried it away. Moreover, after we left, they also 

 got the sow which I had wounded. Although at the time 

 I did not suspect the man's perfidy, nevertheless it was 

 apparent that he had not kept his eyes on the boar as I 



