Boar Hunting

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 12, 15 July 1890, Page 3

Boar Hunting

A BBSOLUTE DOG I I started away from home one Saturday morning in the winter of 1880 to try and iind traces of some cattle that had strayed into the bush. I took two half-bred bull dogs with me, thinking I might come ■acroßS some pigs in the course of my travels. I did not take a gun; my dogs teing well trained, and were a match for «ny boar. After beating about the bush until three o'clock in the afternoon, and was just commencing my homeward journey, when some large pigs started not far from me, and went crashing through the underbrush. Feeling just in the humour for a bout with a boar I sent the dogs after the pigs. They came to lay in a rocky gully some (little distance away. Coming up to them I found three large boars bailed up. Two of them were joung, but very large and strong ; the other a hideous-looking old customer, but past his prime. 1 felt rather for my dogs *s they were' certainly at a disadvantage, Tbut I would not go away without making a try for one of the boars. Sitting upon a mass of rock almost over the spot where the pigs were, I picked up a loss piece of xook and resolved to break the combination if I could. I threw the rock down on the boars and — S-s-catch him lads — in went the dogs, and seized the old boar. The animals had scattered when I threw the rock amongst them, but when the dogs seized one of their number back 4ame the other two, and then a battle royal took place. About five minutes . arproar— savage grunts, squeals, barks >^3nd yells of agony from the dogs — and -the conflict ended altogether in favor of the tuskers. One of my dog? was lying Tvith one of its hind legs broken, a gash across its body sis inches long, almost disembowelling it, was visible, and its throat laid open — a bad case. I could see the dogs were living, but that was all. The other dog was lying perfectly motionless, a severe wound on his forehead laying the skull bare — he was dead no doubt. The old boar that the dogs jhad tackled lad backed under the rock out of my sight; the younger animals stood for a few minutes looking at tde dogs, and then deliberately walked away. I waited -waited a while ; I wanted to get down to the dogs, but the old boar was there, and much as I cared for my dogs I would not face the old brute. One dog dead — the other dying — it was no use my staying, so off I started for home. Next morning after breakfast, going out for a stroll, I was astonished to see the dog I had left apparently dying coming towards me. The poor brute was whining piteously, and a sorry-looking object it was—one leg broken, cut and gashed about terribly, and covered with blood and dirt. I took the dog to a shed and attended to its wounds and the broken leg. I went many times during the day to see how the poor beast was getting on ; it was always very uneasy when it saw me. I thought it was missing its mate. (I knew later on that the suffering animal wanted to tell me something, but not unstanding I took no notice of it.) Later on in the day a neighbor of mine, whose house was only about two miles from the scene of the Saturday afternoon's action, came to my place to tell me he had heard a dog barking in the bush several times during the day, and he thought it was one of my dogs. I did not think it possible, but decided to go back next morning. So at daybreak off I went. Arriving at the spot where I had left the dogs there, sure enough, was my noble dog, not dead, but keeping guard over the old boar ; the sulky old savage had never shifted from the rock under which he had taken refuge. I had my gun with me and shot the- old pig with considerable satisfaction. My dog had been only stunned on the Saturday, and I had left before he recovered. The faithful animal had kept his post from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning without a morsel of food, and badly wounded too. The poor dog hardly had strength to follow me home. A few months, however, made him quite well again. The one with the broken leg never recovered : the faithful animal had evidently gone home for assistance for her mate. B.