, 1884-08-06
THE HOG OF HATE.
The Peceary of Texas, into Whose
Skull Fear Enters Not.
A Courageous brute That would
"Bite'' nj the Zig<ag FLASHES
OF the Dcath-DeaIIne
Lightning.


lCor. Detroit Free Press.I
Texas has within her border a beast into
whose narrow skull fear never enters. 1t Is
the Teccary-the Havilinah Of the Mexicans,
the Dicotyles t%orquatus Of biologists. Bravery
Is II notable attribute Of mnn, and il Is dis
covered in birds. beasts and fishes. l don't
claim the quality for the brute l am about
10 describes. l believe bravery cannot be
said Ia exist in senses devoid Of fear. con
ceiSe that an appreciation of danger is a
necessary menstruuln To the nobler courage.
IL is not the man Of logged Indifference |
admire; it is the man who refuses TO fly when
duty bid him stand, and though he fears
death. fcan dishqnor more.
Now the Ieccary has no particle Of fear on
account OF any show OF odds, and appears to
live only for the purpose OF mAdly dying
when opportunity Offers. The game cock
fights with heroic valor, but one sees In his
swimming eyes when gated aud bleeding ia
the pit. glanccs Of regret and nameless fear.
He shudder out his life beneath his Growing
conqueror, and his tiny heart, perhaps, swells
with woc at It's last throbs. At least he looks
that way TO me. The dying p~achyderm OF
Of the Texas forest dies in IA matter Of
course" manner, as IL he was meant to end
that way and was glad Of 1t. He looks UP in
the tree where the man sits who shot him
NA'N AA1a - Atuih tNtl nuD0N lltlA lIOlll
any other standpointl and anon he holds up
his cloven hoof and glanccs at it II the pee
cary regrets anything in the hour Of disSolu-
ton it Is that he wa not made like q squirrel
to climb.
Roaming the glade, searching for mast, a
drove Of peccaries resemble a drove Of tame
hogs. They never begin IA war, bur when one
Is assailed the entire drove rush TO the attack
ms men rush when martial valor urges them
Each bead-liko eye Is a iire-spark; tusks are
p~rutruded, the echinated spine straighrened
and Woe 10 the wretch who falls 10 their path.
Gored, bitten, torn, trampled upon, and eaten
up. to the last shred OF his cl~othing-such Is
the fnts Of tho man caught by d drove Of
angry lsccaries. With the same fury they
assail n wolf or attack Il bull; and neither the
wolf nor the bull eau stand up against a
charge Of hnlf n dozen pecelries- Both know
this and ny Ia terror from the field.
Lately, On the Wichita river, l attacked "a
drove Of peccaries. was safely perched In
Il treo, armed with a Winchester rife and
accompanied by Sergt Plat, Of the From
tier battalion, who occupied a bough beneath
me.
We waited until the drove approached
within thirty yards Of our tree and then We
fired simultaneously, killing one and wound
ing another. The roar Of our carbines
brought them upon us with that strange
alacrity that suggested their having waited
from sucklings for just that occasion and
kept perfectly ready for IL. When they ar
rived at tho tree they bit it each I'm turn, and
then CHANGING az, squatted and fixed upon us
a dozen pair Of eyes small rs peas and blaz-
ing with fierce purpose and fury intense.
One by ono we shot them, and they fell,
one by one, and died; each willing and ready
to go. and accepting his fate as pleasantly rs
school boys accept apples. Not a groan or n
squeal betrayed paid or dismay. Squatting
on their hams they gazed at US and took the
bullets as II We were tossing them acorns.
Presently only one was left alive amid u
dozen corpses, and there he sat brown, brist-
ling, f%urioua, foaming with rigging life, court
ing death: unmindfui Of the blood that
damped tho grass about him; Indifferent of
tho fate of comrades-a very epitome of
bate.
"Don'tShoot YETI l said to Sergt. rlatt, Il
wnnt TO study him
Grim, voiceless, horrible-the hog sat and
gaveme back glance for glance. The spot he
squatted upon was within the radius Of a red
ant bed The insects crawled over him and
stung his thick hide; they wasted their formic
acid, blunted their lancets In vain. AS we'll
might they have stung the cactus plant grow
ihB bratut lneii ptu. AIuE U uIue the OLD
boar grew weary of gazing and he got up and
went round, smelling the bodies OF his late
companions. Then he ate a few acorns that
had fallen from tho live oak tree we we're
perched in, aud after that he deliberately
stretched himself at the root Of the tree In
tending to remain a sentry and prevent our
slipping away without his permission: or
without doing by him as We had done by ths
others.
We did not keep him waiting much longer.
Plat aimed at his heart and piorced it with
a forty-four caliber bullet; with u single
glance upward from 4 sinister eye, the hog
died gently, and with his life ended his one
emotion-hate.
Texas q Pacific and Fort Worth q Denver
City locomotive engineers often encounter
droves OF peccaries, as l suppose do all en-
gineers who operate on the western
Texas railroads. No whistle Is sounded
10 Brighten them. The engineers
know that peccaries canno be
frightened. Tn engine rushes into the
midst of the drove and those not killed out
right die mndly, charging and biting at tie
wheels that crush them.
A peccary is in all respects a hog. He
looks, smells, tastes like a hog-and Is a hog,
but for IA thing Of indomitable courage of the
lower type, for u hater Of quenchless fury.
and for II fighter To the last throb of his
heart, commend me to the fierce Dicotyles
torquntus, the indigenous Texas hog, a brute
that would, II he could, while riding In the
midst of "a cyclone, bite at the zig-zag flashes
OF the dc~ath-dealing lightning.
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