Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-05-24
TREED BY 4 BIG BOAR.

There is at least one place on the
American continent where wild boar
hunting can be INDUCED in by sports
men who have a liking for the excite
ment of that kind of a chase. In the
Canadian wilderness, nearly two hun
dred miles North Of the ancient town of
It. Thomas. and beyond the advance
line Of civilization, the huntsman may
end a field for the enjoyment of pig
hunting, provided he is so constituted
that he can extract enjoyment from
beating the tangled swamps and trailing
the muddy creek bottoms of that solita-
nv region in search of an animal that
has nothing to commend it to the hunt
er but excessive combativeness, and a
tendency to assume the position itself
of hunter quite as frequently as it be-
comes the hunted. l had once the op-
portunityto test the tenacity of purpose
and blood-thirsty bent of mind of par
ticularly ugly specimen of the Canadian
wild hog, and ever since that adventure
Ihave not dared to doubt even the widest
tales any hunter has had the conscience
10 relate.
The origin of the wild pig in Canada
is stated to have been through liking
for pork of half breek guide who lived
in the region where the animals now
abound. The guide, firing of flesh Of
deer, bear and bird, bought two live pigs
on one Of his visits to st. Thomas, and
took them to his home in the woods.
This was twenty years ago. He turned
them loose to fatten on the mast and
succulent roots in the woods, and when
ne sought them for his use they could
not be found. The guide supposed they
had died in the woods. 1t was not un-
til two years later that he discovered
that the woods were populated with
heard of swine, great, ugly, bigtusked,
animals, wild and ag
gressive. There could be no other eX-
planation of their presence than that
they were the progeny of the guides two
AbcI GlGS. 1llC lllnuCAlNC vi NAlC hOOlo
had developed race as utterly wild as
any of the other beasts that inhabited
the swamps and forest, and much more
ferocious. The wild pigs are still there,
and will doubtless always continue to
be.
In 1879 I was one of a party of men,
bers of the Toilers' Club of the city Of
New York who entered that Canadian
for three weeks deer hunt.
We were all ignorant of the fact that
there were wild hogs in the woods. One
day was on a tramp, five miles from
our cabin, when suddenly something
jumped up out of boggy place three or
four rods ahead of me, snorting in way
that brought NE to stop in a jiffy. l
saw that it was one of the biggest and
certainly one of the ugliest looking hogs
! had ever seen. l thought it belonged
to an old half-b breed who lived on patch
he had cleared q mile or two from our
camp, but l was so annoyed at the way
the ugly brute had frightened me that l
a bullet after him. 1 must
have hit him. for he turned quickly and
came for me as if he meant business. l
wasn't prepared for this, and dropped
my gun and Skinned up small beech
tree alongside of which L was standing.
[ thought of course the animal would
20 away as soon as he found l was out
Of his reach, but he didn't seem to be
that kind of hog. The weather was
colder than a blast off the Greenland
coast, and it was getting late in the af-
-ernoon. The hog began waltzing around
he tree like trained horse in circus,
md at every step he spit out frOth as if
ne were chewing shaving soap. The |
,usks he threw out for me to gaze upon
would have done credit to young rhi- |
loceros. After circling around the tree
or a few minutes he was apparently |
seized with the idea that he would gnaw |
he tree down, and at he went with those |
ive-inch tusks. The chips flew out of
hat tree as if he was planning ma
,hine, and l saw that it was only ques-
ion of time when that boar would bring |
ne down as unceremoniouSly as the
,oon hunter topples over the tree with |
he coon in the crotch; but for some rea-
on the hog gave up the idea when the
rec was about half way cut through,
nd if he had but known it, there was
where he made big mistake He did MT
AVE more than five inches more to
nav before down would have come.
After he had quit gnawing the boar
norted and frothed around the tree
gain for ten minutes. Then he went
way few feet and sat down on his
launches.
There he sat for half an hour looking
traight up at me and gnawing and
norting and shaking his head and scat
ering froth. felt that was gradual
' freezing Besides that it was coming
n dark. 1 shouted and yelled in hopes
hat the others would hear me, but they
we're too far away. 1 was just on the
'oint of letting myself down out of thej
rec and trying a foot race with the boar
7hen suddenly a new idea seemed to
trike him. He made one jump for the
rec, and began to dig the dirt from
round it like steam shovel. The wav
e threw the earth from the roots of the
rec anyone would have thought he
yould have taken contract to dig
ellar. By and by it dawned upon me
hat the hog was up to.
"Blast the brute'' said I. "He's 60
lg to dig the tree up by the roots"
Then the way we used to frighten
ogs out of the yard when 1 was boy
ame back to me.
''S'boy, therer' 1 yelled. 'S'boy, there!'
But that hog had been too long in the !
-oods to 's'boy" worth cent. Then 1 !
that when l was lad and .
he hogs got in the garden they always .
lade hole in the fence when you whis- /:
ed for the dogs; so L whistled for an /,
imaginary dog, ann called:
"Hyer, Tiger! H'yer, h'yer, h'yerl :
axe him, Tigerr'
But that hog only worked the faster,
le more tried to scare him away, and
othed with increased frothiness and
lorted all the louder.
1t got bark. was nearly frozen. The t