Jan. 25, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
6 9 
one side of the camp, and had just seated ourselves for a 
quiet smoke, when one of the men called to us from a 
short distance below the camp that he had found "some 
pecan trees just loaded." and we all joined in the gather- 
ing of the pecan nuts, leaving our guns in camp. 
To our surprise in a few minutes the hounds burst in 
sight a short distance away, followed by a small drove of 
razorbacks, and everyone of us hastened up a tree as 
quickly as possible, while the hounds, followed by the 
hogs, passed on to camp. All our tents had been shut 
up to keep the dry leaves and dirt from blowing in ex- 
cept the store or provision tent, through which the 
hounds charged, while the hogs stopped at the door of 
the tent a moment and then entered and began feeding 
on our provisions. The Judge, Cap, Shorty, the assistant 
engineer and I descended, and making a circuit of the 
camp soon had our rifles, and each one of us taking posi- 
tion by a tree up which we could climb if necessary, when 
a shot was fired by Cap and the hogs came charging for 
us, only to be killed before any of us were forced to tree. 
An examination of the hogs showed them to be five old 
sows, which were hauled out away from camp for a treat 
to the coyotes, which had nightly been serenading us. 
King returned in the evening, accompanied by two large- 
sized, disreputable looking Indian dogs of some mongrel 
breed, which made their triumphant entry into the camp 
by quickly whipping the spaniel and the" hounds, while 
King, as if to add insult to injury, calmly said when 
asked why he brought tho8e worthless curs to camp with 
him, "Them dogs are worth more for hunting in this 
country than all the hounds west of the Missouri River." 
After he had been told of the capture of the camp by the 
hogs he gravely said, "We'll have trouble with the devils 
as long as them hounds are loose, and they ought to be 
tied up." 
The Judge replied, "No, no, let the hounds run a few 
days till they get used to the hogs, so that we can use 
them hunting bears and panthers in the canebrakes down 
by the river." 
Next morning, just as we had gathered around our 
breakfast table— composed of the loose top side boards of 
the wagons resting on two poles supported by four 
crotched fctakes— the camp was charged by the hounds and 
seven razorbacks, and we treed until we could shoot the 
hogs, which in the meantime had been heiping them- 
selves to our breakfast, and the Judge ordered his 
black boy, Sam, to "tie up the hounds and keep them 
tied." 
The Friday afternoon following the Judge and I had 
been down in the river bottoms with our shotguns, shoot- 
ing quail over Carlo, and climbing up through a break in 
the rock wall of the park land had gone along the top of 
the wall until we came up with the surveyors at work, 
when we were startled by the faint yelping of the hounds 
down near the river, either in the timber or canebrakes. 
As the entire party walked to the edge of the park land 
the Judge stated that he had told Sam to let the hounds 
loose for a run after we had been gone three hours, sup- 
posing they would follow our footsteps over the bottoms, 
and down in the bottoms there would be no chance to 
run against any hoga. King startled the whole party by 
saying, "All through the heavy timber close to the river 
are lots of white oak and pecan trees, and there are lots 
more hogs down in that timber and the canebrake than 
there is on the bluffs." 
The hounds were then seen coming out of the heavy 
timber on a burned strip, followed by hundreds of hogs, 
running toward the rocks on which we were standing, 
and when they reached the rocks the drove of hogs was 
about a hundred yards away; but we were standing at the 
inner point of a bend of the rocky wall, and the drove sur- 
rounded the hounds upon the bottom side, cutting off any 
chance of escape along the side of the rocky wall. While 
the Judge and I fired all our heavy shot at the advancing 
hogs, we could not break their ranks, and in a minute or 
so at the bottom of the rocks there was a tumult of angry 
hogs, in which the hounds disappeared. When the hogs 
went back toward the river in a short time the only 
trace we could see of the hounds was some widely scat- 
tered bones. 
In his anger at the death of his hounds the Judge de- 
clared a vendetta against the hogs, and as long as we 
remained in camp he never let an opportunity slip to kill 
every hog he could get a shot at; and thereafter never 
left the camp for bird shooting with a shotgun unless 
followed by Sam, carrying a rifle to use if any hogs were 
seen. 
When seated around the camp-fire that night King told 
of a squaw-man (a white man married to a pquaw) who, 
concluding to catch some young pigs to tame and fatten, 
had caught two young pigs and put them into his wagon, 
when their squealing called up a small drove of four old 
sows and a boar, which charged his team and killed his 
horses by ripping them open before he could shoot all 
the old ones, and thus disastrously ended his pork specu- 
lation. 
The Judge, who had listened attentively to King's nar- 
rative, at its close asked the chief, "Can King go with us 
to-morrow, and can I have one of the teams? I've got a 
new plan for a hunt to-morrow, and need three men to help 
me besides a teamster and Sam." 
"Certainly; I am only sorry that the work is in such 
shape that I can't leave it to go with you, or I'd only be 
too glad to go myself ," was the reply. 
In the morning the lightest wagon and fleetest team 
were selected, while the Judge and Sam fastened two 
spring seats, facing backward, near the rear end of the 
wagon. When his reasons for the placing of the seats in 
that position was asked, the Judge only said, "It is part 
of my plan, and you'll see the good of it before we get 
back to camp." 
Directed by him, each of us filled the pocket of our 
hunting coat on the left side, as well as our belts, with 
cartridges, and King and I took the middle seat, while the 
Judge and Sam took the rear one, and we were driven up 
and out upon the prairie about five miles to a thicket of 
hazel and sumach bushes, near a timbered ravine and the 
edge of the park land. 
Giving Sam his rifle to hold, the Judge jumped out of 
the end of the wagon and ran into the bushes, from 
which a loud squeaking was soon heard, and the Judge 
then came out of the bushes, grasping in each hand the 
hindlegs of a young pig weighing about 201bs. Calling 
to me to change seats with Sam, the Judge ran to the side 
of the wagon and handed the pigs to Sam, ordering him 
to hold fast to them; he then jumped into the rear end 
of the wagon, with the order to the driver of "Run your 
team for camp as fast as they can run." Before we had 
gone lOOyds. a drove of ten razorbacks broke out of the 
bushes, led by a gaunt boar of an extra large size, and 
came charging after us, while we began shooting as fast 
as we could fire. One after another of the hogs dropped 
until the boar alone was left, upon whom our shots 
seemed to have no effect, when, from stumbling or step- 
ping into a badger's hole, one of the horses fell, the wagon 
upset, and we were all thrown sprawling upon the ground 
except King, who striking upon his feet ran off quartering 
a short distance from the charging boar, when he stopped 
and by a well directed shot brought him to the ground, 
where a second shot finished him before he could rise to 
continue his charge. 
While we were righting the wagon the Judge stated 
that King's story of the squaw-man the night before had 
recalled to his mind an account he had read of the Russian 
way of wolf-huncing, and having discovered the nest of 
young pigs a few days before while looking through the 
brush for wild turkeys, he had concluded that the Russian 
way of wolf -hunting would be a good plan to shoot wild 
hogs with, and though the plan worked all right he had 
made no calculations for any chance of the wagon being 
upset by one of the horses falling into a badger hole, and 
one such trial was enough to last him a lifetime. 
On my inquiring of King, "Why did you run off to oue 
side to shoot the boar?" he led us back to the body of the 
boar and told me to take my knife and rip his hide open 
on the neck. Taking out my sheath-knife, which had a 
razor edge, I made a slight stroke at the hide, when, to the 
surprise of all but King, the knife seemed to make no im- 
pression upon the hide. He then took the hide and by 
careful and continued cutting opened the hide upon the 
back and skinned it down over a shoulder, and cut off a 
piece of the hide, which to our astonishment was over 
3in. thick. He then stated that as a wild boar grows old 
from some cause his shield or hide over head, neck and 
shoulders thickens and hardens until it becomes bullet- 
proof, and is his great defense in his battles with others of 
his kind, and with bears and panthers, which he does not 
hesitate to attack, generally coming off victorious. He 
then pointed out places on the shield where our bullets 
had hit him and glanced off, making slight scratches, and 
said that he ran off to one side to get a shot at the boar 
behind his shield. 
Returning to the wagon, the Judge asked Sam what 
had become of the pigs, and Sam replied, "King threw 
them out of the wagon before we got upset." 
King then explained that he had cut the throats of the 
pigs and thrown them out of the wagon to stop their 
squealing, and had just thrown the last one out as the 
wagon upset, and but for the upset the boar, when he 
came to it, would have stopped to examine it until we got 
out of the way. 
The bodies of the pigs were picked up and taken to 
camp, and while we found the roast pork delicious, and 
thereafter during our camp life used it frequently to vary 
our bill of fare, none of us ever cared to hunt hogs again 
after the Judge's improved Russian plan, and the pigs we 
roasted thereafter were obtained by careful work of the 
Judge, King or the writer, always watching and shooting 
the old sow first, and then killing the pigs by shooting 
them through the head, taking no chances of causing them 
to squeal to call up a drove of old ones. 
A BOAR HUNT IN FRANCE. 
Chateau Baudelot Migeon, a Harancourt, Ardennes, 
France. — The woods of the Ardennes, noted throughout 
Europe, are located in the extreme northwest of France 
and border the countries of Belgium and Germany. They 
cover an immense district and belong to the French Gov- 
ernment. The province of Ardennes has always been 
famous for its wild boars and other game, for Kings 
Charlemagne and Clovis had hunting lodges in them and 
used to come with their courts for an annual hunt in its 
famous woods. It has also been a battlefield, from times 
immemorial, upon which some of the most, momentous 
events of history have been transacted. The Normans left 
countless ruins behind them in this historic province, and 
the battlefield of Waterloo is almost within rifle shot of it, 
and the fateful battle of Sedan (its capital) bathed its 
peaceful valleys and hills in blood, and marked the trans- 
formation of France from a monarchy into a republic and 
the downfall of the Napoleonic dynasty. 
The sun was vainly struggling to find its way through 
the clouds; from the chateau window could be seen the 
fog, in woolly like masses, tumbling among the tree tops 
on the hills across the valley. Within all was comfort, 
there was the merry blazing logs in a huge open fire- 
place, and the song of birds came to the ear softly from 
amid the foliage of an adjoining conservatory; without, 
dampness and drizzle and fog— fog everywhere. Suddenly 
there came the quick tapping of finger tips on the window, 
and the animated face of Charles Albert Antoine Baudelot 
was disclosed, his eyes blazing with excitement. "Hola!" 
he cried, "the wild boars! Uncle's gamekeeper has just 
come in and reports that several were in the woods near 
Montjoie, in the preserves. We must not lose a 
moment I" 
No fire, no earthquake, could create more excitement 
in an Ardennes chateau than the cry of "wild boars!" In 
a moment servants were scurrying hither and thither to 
notify neighboring gentlemen to come and join in the 
chase, for a wild boar hunt to be successful needs not only 
courage, but numbers. It seemed but a trice when be- 
hind a giant gray mare— which the excited Albert, a very 
youthful cousin, urged at a smart pace along the broad 
macadamized road — we were on the way. Albert explained 
how every morning the gamekeeper makes a tour around 
the forests and keeps withal an observing eye about him 
for signs of game. This morning his practiced eye had 
seen in the soft mud the imprints of the feet of the wild 
boar, the toe marks all pointing to the forest, and as no 
footprints were seen leading away he knew the boars 
were still there; for they are nocturnal animals and nest 
secluded during the day in the shades of the wood, and 
they were likely to be there all day; so the faithful 
fellow hurried to the chateau to give the tidings, 
The Ardennes are not all forest; it is one of the best 
cultivated parts of France, only certain hills and valleys 
not specially cultivatable are reserved by the wealthy for 
wood for fuel and hunting preserves. The forest of the 
Ardennes proper is a deep fringe of woods bordering on 
Belgium mostly. 
Our way to the forests of La Conaette, the preserves 
where the boara were seen, led us upward through 
a peaceful cultivated valley — theJTsame by the way 
in which the exhausted French army slept after the 
battle of Beaumont on the eve of the battle of Sedan — 
and Albert pointed out the places in the woods where in 
1871, unknown to the sleeping army of France, the 
videttes of the German army looked down upon them, 
sure of their prey on the day following, Very soon we 
left the main route and journeyed over a road through 
the fields, always upward. To the right could be seen the 
mist enshrouded valley of Veudresse and rising above the 
fog the bold outlines of Storm Mountain, once in ancient 
times a camp and burial place of the Romans, and over 
which still runs one of the famous roadB, beautifully 
paved and 50ft. wide, but now overgrown and running 
without any deviation for hill or ravine as straight as a 
line for 131 miles, from Rheims, France, to Trave in Ger- 
many. 
On and up, still we toiled. In half an hour [the forest 
of La Comette comes into view, a long, low line of wood 
acroBS the top of the mountain, dipping down into the 
mist-covered valley of the Storm. For generation after 
generation La Comette has been used for the chase in the 
same family, and it has roads and paths especially devised 
for convenience in passing through its hundreds of acres. 
In its depths is a little hunting lodge located for, shelter 
from wintry winds in an old narrow quarry. 
The chase began about time of our arrival. The hunt- 
ers had all assembled with guns and dogs. Absolute 
silence was maintained, for the wild boar is a timid ani- 
mal when not wounded, and then he becomes a fiend 
incarnate and fights desperately. We carefully hid our 
horses in the edge of the forest and waited, while the 
master of the hunt, a tall, grizzled veteran, placed the 
hunters around the piece of forest the boars were thought 
to be in. Silently and surely was the cordon drawn; even 
the dogs seemed to catch the spirit of silence, and uttered 
not a sound. Albert and I being guests and unarmed were 
placed at the best point of observation — at a corner of the 
wood looking down a road through the center, and to 
the left affording a view along the side of the forest. We 
were enjoined not to speak above a whisper. It was a 
dramatic sight; — the view to our right down that narrow 
forest avenue — to see, stationed a few rods apart, a line of 
four or five armed men standing like statues,silently await- 
ing their savage quarry, when the signal should be given 
that all was ready and the dogs should be let loose to hunt 
the boars out. Minutes passed, and to us they seemed 
hours, as we stood there amid the dripping boughs with 
ears strained, waiting to hear the bay of the dogs as a 
signal of commencement. 
Albert leaned over and whispered, "In the excitement 
and hurry of leaving I forgot to bring a revolver, which 
it would be well to have in case we are attacked by a 
wounded boar." 
"Ah, Albert! you are a forgetful boy! Why not a 
gun?" 
"Oh, no, no!" answered Albert, "neither of us have 
hunting permits, for hunting is an expensive luxury in 
France; every one who is lucky enough to have a place 
to hunt in must pay the French Government a good round 
sum for a permit to carry a gun." 
"Do you feel easy here without some sort of arm?" 
"To tell you the truth I don't," whispered Albert in 
reply. 
Suddenly the stil-; ^ was broken by a wild and pro- 
longed bay from a dog, which rang out, echoed and re- 
echoed through the woods with startling force. 
"The hunt is on!" cried Albert. "Keep your eyes 
open," and quickly following came redoubled the frantic 
yelps of the dogs keen on the scent; then gun shots and 
cries of "hoo! hoo!"* from the hunters at the other side 
of the woods. It was wildly exciting to us as we stood 
there gazing at each other and not knowing what was 
taking place in the woods out of our sight. We were, 
however, not destined to remain long in suspense; there 
was a crash and snapping of boughs and twigs in the 
forest very near us; then there came out into the open 
not more than a rod from us a huge wild boar. The 
bristles on the back of his great brown body stood erect, 
like the spines of a fish, his mouth was agape, with tongue 
lolling, and his gleaming tusks were clattering viciously 
together. He saw us at the same moment and half 
paused, turning his great long head for a better view, 
and then with a snarling growl, half grunt, he turned 
and loped cumbrously over a plowed field, on the edge 
of which we were standing, and disappeared into the 
valley beyond, leaving us not very fully recovered from 
our astonishment and consternation. 
Of all the wrathful sights of man or beast, commend 
me a wild boar! Never will I forget that clattering dis- 
play of tusks. 
"If he had been wounded he would have attacked us," 
said Albert. 
"Albert, how did he look to you?" 
"About the size of an elephant, with a mouth the size 
of a barn doorway and teeth a yard long," replied Al- 
bert. 
"Bang! bang!" "Yow, yow, yowl" from the dog. We 
were again in the midst of it. It seemed as if the hunt 
was concentrated around us two poor, unarmed and badly 
scared spectators, and so it was. There was another great 
crashing and snarling in the bushes at our left, and a huge 
boar broke through, closely followed by dogs. He leaped 
across the road and disappeared in the forest at the other 
side. Hardly had we recovered our startled senses from 
this when the smashing and breaking of branches near 
us waa renewed; a shot rang out, and a great wild boar 
tumbled with a half somersault almost at our feet, dead. 
At the same moment Cousin Emil Baudelot appeared 
with a smoking gun, preceded by his dogs. 
"II est mort!" ("He is dead!") he shouted. 
The other hunters rushed up and congratulations were 
showered on young Emil, only 20 years old, and this his 
first boar. 
That day two wild boars were the result of the hunt. 
Space forbids the telling of how the hunters all adjourned 
to the old Chateau Montjoie; how in the banqueting hall 
came the feast and toasts which invariably follow a suc- 
cessful hunt, and at which stories were recounted of ad- 
ventures with wounded boars in long past hunts, songs 
were sung, and the liver of the day's quarry was served, 
smoking amid a savory sauce, as had been the custom for 
centuries past in the same old hall; for in this country, 
whose civilization dates back into the dawn of history, a 
century is but as a decade. Theo. H. Seymour. 
* Signal that ^oarg were eeeu. 
