Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-01-09
FIGHT TO THE Deaf j
A Panther Vanquished and De-
voured by Wild Hogs

voured by Wild Hogs
What North Carolina Hunter Saw on the
Top of North Mountain-A Snarling,
Screaming. sqUealing, Ripping
and Tearing Scene.
A letter from Cherry Gap, N. c., to the
Cincinnati Enquirer says: 60 Nick Smith, the
old North Mountain hunter and trapper,
who lives in a cave of the mountain in its
deepest fastness, came here few days
since, and is still here l have diligently
piled him with questions and listened to his
stories until have enough to fill an octave
volume. One of them, the story of fight
between wild hogs and panther, l will
tell in his own language as near possible:
"'About ten years ago, nears kin rekol-
lect, was huntin' on top of North Mount
ain, about twenty miles from here. ! had
killed big buck an had jest finished skin
in him when / heard the squealn' nv a
drove of wild hogs. You kin bet l just
hung that buck up in a tree quick as could,
fur them critters is the pryenest things an
the meanest We ever saw Why, if they get
mad they'll tackle any thing. Well, he'd
es' got my deer safe when heerd them
cummin', a-squealin' an a-gruntin'. he'd
to hunt a safe place myself, fur there wuz
no use a-shootin' one where there's maybe
forty. If killed one Td had to kill 'em all;
they'd never leave long as one of 'em wuz
alive. l throwed the gun strap over my
shoulder an took to good-sized tree about
twenty yards from where hung the deer.
"'Them hogs put in an appearance Just
as 1 got into big limb about fifteen feet
above the ground. They wuz led by two
big boars, and wuz twenty-nine Nv 'em all
told. They smelt the blood an the deer,
rooted up the leaves and ground with their
long noses, an tore around generally until
they found the tree where the deer wuz
hung Just about this time heard some
thing jumpin' from tree to tree on the lower
side of the rize, an purity soon saw the
long, slim body of the biggest painter ever
saw jump onto limb Nv a tree about seven
or eight yards from the limb the deer wuZ
hung on. Them hogs hadn't yet winded
the painter, an they kept up sich racket
squealin' an gruntin' thet they hadn't
heerd him. The painter didn't see the hogs
until he struck the last tree, when he wuz
almost over them. He jest laid himself out
full length on the limb an watched them,
all the time slowly wavin his tail back an
| forth an showin' his teeth. He know'd he
/ had to git thet meat while it wuz in the
| tree or hev the fight Nv his life fur 1t If 1t
| got to the ground.
latter bit the painter seemed to make
up his mind, Iur he got his feet under him
J an sGuatted. l tell We, stranger, thet wuz
a purity jump. Thet painter jest sailed
| through the air an landed plump on the
| limb over the deer. When the painter
! struck the limb the nogs quit squealin' and
/ tearin' round and formed themselves in a
| ring with the body Nv the deer IN the center
| above them They began to foam at the
mouth an snap their tusks. What a noise
/ they made They wuz the maddest an
| awfelest lookin' animals ever saw. All
this time the painter wuz tryin' to haul the
/ deer up to him with his paw, but every
| time he'd git the deer swung partly round
! the sInews with which he wpz fastened to
the limb wud make it slip back Purity
soon the painter seemed to see the trouble,
fur he grabbed the buck with one paw,
while he reached down and bit the deer
loose. There's where the painter made the
! biggest mistake of his life, for he couldn't
hold the deer when the fastenin'S wuZ cut
and in spite Nv him it tore loose from his
claws an fell right in the middle of the
drove of hogs. They jumped on it and tore
it into pieces quickern' kin tell ye.
" The painter was so mad that he lost his
Judgment, or he wouldn't hev done sich a
foolish thing as he did, for he gave one
snarl an wuz among them hogs IN second,
hnOCh1hS IWO Nv OnVlA ONCA % hC AoilOCO.
| Then there wuz fight. The hogs quit the
deer an went fur the painter Now he wuz
down an then up. Over went a hog ripped
| wide open, here, while there another got a
| wipe with that big paw which made him see
| stars. But the hogs want idle, by no
means They ripped and tore thet painter
fore an aft. There wuz a dozen long cuts
on his sides an legs, an his body wuz cov-
cred with blood. Sich snarling. screamin',
squealin', rippln' an tearin' l never did see.
| In less than / kin tell it, eleven Nv them
hogs wuz laid out an two or three more wuz
hurt; but the painter wuz purity near
knocked out, too. He wuZ layin' on his
back, an every time hog got IN reach of
his claws he wud give him rip which wud
knock thet hog out, at least for awhile.
| One hog made lunge al the painters head
and got caught by the throat by the painter,
| bat thet wuz his last act, fur one NV
| the boars drove his long tusks into the
| painters belly an literally ripped him
wide open from one end to the other, an in
less than three seconds that painter wuz
tore into pieces. The hogs took up the
/ pieces, bones an all, an crunched an
ground them till nothin' could be seen of
the animal big enough to make a gun-wad.
! Thet wuZ a battle, sure. There wuz about
| fifteen dead hogs and six or. eight tore an
gashed from snout to tail. don't believe a
single one escaped some injury. But the
livin' ones, whether wounded or not, jist
kept tearin' round till they cleaned up all
that wuz left of the deer an painter.
"I he'd set on that limb an watched the
| fight until it wuz finished an never thought
| of my gun, an if he'd don't believe wud
| hev used it; but now that it wuz over
knew I'D hev to kill the rest of the hogs or
stay in the tree all night, so l commenced
1
| After the first shot the living ones sur
| rounded my tree and tried to get at me, an
they staid all night there till l keeled over
the last one. After he'd cleaned them out
/ started for home, an for the first time in
long while got there without any meat. -