The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-02-12

From the Baltimore Sun.
 T was not little surprised when I read in the papers the other day about the narrow escape E. F. Yoakum had re- ccntly from being made away with by drove of peccaries in southwest Texas. said retired Erie engineer, flor he Is native of Texas and ought to have had some inking at least of the pecularities of the peccary. l could have told him about 'em myself
 Tn the early days of railroading ,r Texas I down there and took charge of an engine on a road west of San An- tonic. My fireman was also a northern man and innocent like myself of the ways of the critters that crawled and climbed and clawed and snorted and howled in that out-of-the-way corner of our great and glorious country. When heard there was bears a-plenty almost anywhere along there I made up my mind to have Texas bear hunt some day, and one. day I mentioned my intention to the agent at one of the way stations.
 Bear hunting is all right said he. You won't have any trouble getting after bear, or maybe in having one get after you. but look out for peccaries. Be care full and don't get into mixup with pee carries. If you do. your job on this rail- loadll be to let
 That made me smile.
 "I don't know what peccaries arc. said I, 'bu. I guess if ain't feeling much of a scare about goin out to tackle bears there ain't anything else proving around in the jungles that's going to give inc one. Not me-. I said.
 And that made the native smile.
 Oh, the peccaries won't be looking for fight with your said he. As a rule the, peccary never is looking for fight un- less it may be with bear. The peccary hates bears. A dozen men may ride or walk past a whole drove of 'em unless some one of the party is so unwise as to fire a shot into the drove. If one pee cary is hurt. the whole drove instantly abandons all other business as one pecarry and never does another thing until the injury done to that one of it's number is avenged If vengeance is possible.
 "Us folks, native and to the manne- born, know this inborn peculiarty of the peccary and never give the little beast the slightest cause for suspicion Not few mysterious d!sappearances of tender foot hunters and tourists hereabout may he explained in no better way than by the assumption that they had tried their guns on peccaries. Go bear hunting by nu means but give the peccaries right of way if you should happen to run across any
 T pulled down an under eyelid at the a~ent. as meaning to want to know of him if he saw anything green about me. and my fireman and I had laugh oyer he way he had sought to stun us. Next day on our trip back. all of sudden my fireman hollered out that there was a droxe of hogs on the track. Sure enough, about three train lengths ahead of us q drove of hogs on the track. Sure enough. looking hogs I ever saw were taking their time walking across the track. | Some of them razorbacks hear this country Is noted for, I s'pose,' said |. I blew the whistle supposing. of course, that it would frighten the hogs and hurry | them off of the rails. But instead of 1t doing that, the minute they heard th5 sound they all stopped in their tracks and seemed to be waiting for me.
 "All I could do then was to pull her wide open and cut throrSr tha "r"-.c. which I did knocked heap of 'em off dead as hammers. and
 nristled up md -''e@
 to grab hold of the cars if we hadn't slid | by so quick.
 "Razorback hogs may be shy or pork. said I, as looked back and saw that what were left of the lot were standing