Show HUNTING THE WILD HOG I i Fiercer Than a Grizzly and Doesnt Hesitate to Attack Anything The wild hogs of southern Colorado are distinct in breed from the ptccarlua i though thc hunting of each has somewhat some-what the same characteristics I The pee l caries belong rather to Central d I J South America than tQ tiny part L of the j United States Both are absolutely fearless and re4 l Jcntlcss to a decree not found In any j other animal except possibly the wild dog of India J a grizzly or a mountain moun-tain lion kills one of a diove of either wild hog or pcccarlea the I rest of the drove start on a mission of vengeance They will follow the offending animals for hundreds of miles traveling at a quick little trot which seldom falls to tire the fugitive When the object of theIr pursuit Is treed they will wait with unwearied patience until he descend de-scend Then it Is a fight anti a fight to the death The drove will not turn back until their vengeance has been sated Col Jack RogerS who has hunted along the southern course of the Colorado Colo-rado river Is an enthusiast on the subject sub-Ject of wild hog hunting There Is no sport In the world says he that Is attended with as much risk or more excitement Wild hogs will kill anything that walks No grizzly vlli trifle with a drove He knouo it Is sure dealli The only Instance I over heard of where a grizzly got mixed up In alight a-light with these wild hogs was where tho hogs tried to kill I a couple of grizzly cubs Of course the mother grizzly l defended j de-fended her cubs and a mother grizzly tgh lng for her cubs la about as fierce a proposition as walks But In the end both lie cubs and the big grizzly were torn to bits These hogs would rather fight than feed Their teeth are like razors their skins are as tough as they make them and their tenacity of life Is astounding The first and most Important rule that a hunter must observe when he goes after af-ter these animals Is lo be near a tree If he neglects this precaution his first hunt stands a good chance of being his last And it must be a tree large enough so that the hogs cant dig about the roots and cut them with their sharp teeth The first time I went OP a hunt after these Southwestern iiogs I was inclined to laugh at the warnings of my Yuma Indian guides About noon we came on a drove Tile one of the Yuma guides told me to get my rifle ready and lake my stand near a Ihlckspreadlng tree with some lowhanglng limbs Ho and Paul the second Indian stepped off to the sides each standing beside a sap hag Then we sent the dogs Into the brush and awaited developments The developments came The dogs broke out of the underbrush They didnt pay any attention to us but acted act-ed like dogs that Imd some important business al the other end of the county Following the dogs and only a little way behind came a big boar If ever I saw a truly demoniac picture of rage It was that The white foam was dripping drip-ping from his great teeth he was covered cov-ered with the blood of a slaughtered dog and he was certainly out on the kill rite tired and hit him square on the forehead lie gave a grunt of rage and wheeled Tlte had made the mistake of not selecting se-lecting a large enough tree It was only a sapling but he swims tip without losing los-ing time dropping his gun The boar came at the sapling full tilt struck It fair with his forehead and the blow shook the little tree so thai Tile was nearly shaken off After two or three attempts to butt down the tree the boar began work about three feet from th foot of It digging dig-ging up the ground until he struck a root then biting It with his sharp leelh I Judged It was up to me to lake a hand In the game I slung my rifle over my shoulder and scrambled up Into my tree I got a good range on the big hog and let him have It If I expected hat bullet to bring him down I was a mighty mistaken mis-taken hunter He saw the smbke from my rifle recognized he hnd a new enemy to deal with and came for my tree without loss of time He started in to try to dig up the roots The tree was too big for him lo succeed in Ihla design de-sign and besides I didnt give him a fair chance at It I pumped bullets nt him at short range until hfc keeled over But it took seven shots After the big boar had been disposed of Tlte and I thought we would see how Paul was making It lie was concealed by intervening underbrush Wo could hear his rifle popping as if he was being be-ing kept Interested Then lie rlllc shots stopped That worried us for we could hear the snarls and grunts from the pigs and were afraid Paul might have fallen Into serious trouble At last we got where we could gct a clear view and It was about as exciting a sight as I ever saw All the drove except the big boar had broken through the brush near where Paul was standing He promptly shinned up his sapling and thcire he waa besieged Time tree wasnt big enough for comfort but It was too large to be butted down The hogs had begun vigorous vig-orous mining operations however and If Paul had been alone he certainly would have lost his lifeLike life-Like a good many of the Yuma In din us who are a povertystricken lot he started out with only half a dozen cartridges When the hogs treed hint ho made good use of his supply but thero were more hogs than cartridges So he was a helpless captive guarded by as angry a lot of animals as could be found on the American continent Unless wo had been there either the hogs would have succeeded In bringing down the tree or they would have waited wait-ed until hunger and exhaustion had forced him to lose his grip Like the peccaries these hogs can outwait and outstarvo anything that walks and have an absolutely tireless patience when they are waiting to execute Vengeance Ven-geance on Ihe man or nulinal lhat hiaa aroused their wrath Once out of tue tree and Paul would have been torn to pieces In a twinkling Tito and I clambered up a couple or trees where wo had a good range and opened firc Wo had plenty of ainmu nlllon and of course the fight could have only one Issue But not one of those hogs ran away Every one Was killed while raging and foaming at the foot of one oC the trees in which we were perched There were nineteen in all which with the big follow who had first attacked at-tacked Tlte made twenty In the drove a larger drove than usual When we looked over our cartridge bolts we found that It had taken more than fifty bullets bul-lets lo dispose oC the drove Yet all three of us Were acScounled good shoto Washington Post 1 |