THE WILD BOAR

He trotted along happily enough through the great open spaces of the Argan Forest,[4]parts well-nigh unknown to men. All around him the giant Argan trees defied the sun. Stray goats climbed their broad branches to eat the fruit, the tiny asphodel flowered in their shade, and the stock-doves cooed.

Little Tusker knew the forest better in darkness than by morning light, for the herd rested during the heat, and the grown up ones fed at night; but they often drank by day in that secluded place, and would seek the pools by the tiny river where trout flashed and otters fished and kingfishers shone in the bright sun. It was pleasant to go down to the pool in the middle of the hot night and listen to the nightingales in the woods around. By day the numbers of the herd stood in the way of complete enjoyment, for the strong ones got to the water first and the weakest had to wait.

“Why do we all go together like this?” asked little Tusker.

“For safety,” replied the mother, who had no tusks and was naturally of a timid, shrinking disposition. “There are hyænas and other wild things in the forest. We might be attacked if we went by ourselves. You will remain with the herd until you are four or five years old, and then you will do as your father has done, and will live by yourself, for your tusks will have grown until you can protect yourself against anything but the Man.”

“What is the Man?” he asked.

“He is the enemy who never tires,” answered his mother. “He has two legs instead of four, he has no tusks, he does not know the forest as we know it, but he carries death with him, and the boar he follows is doomed.”

All this was quite unintelligible to little Tusker, and the first few years of his life brought him no reminder of the warning. He travelled with the herd, but as soon as he was able to look after himself his mother’s affection came to an end, and she would push him out of her way on the feeding grounds, as readily as though he had been a stranger. The herd went many miles in search of food, and did most of their travelling and eating by night, when only the jackals and hyænas made a noise in the forest. They rooted for sweet potatoes and wild turnips, tearing up great patches of ground, and they hunted for the young maize at the proper season of the year, ravaging the lands of the farmers to get the grain.

Luckily for them the farmers, being Moors, were without guns and full of superstition. They would not sit up at night to wait for the marauders, and so the herd grew fat. Every season saw some of the full-grown boars leave to live their solitary life, and in the early winter sows would go away for some months and bring their litter back with them later on.

On his nightly rambles little Tusker often met the porcupine who also fed after dark, and was quite harmless in spite of his formidable bristles. He heard the jackals crying and was amused; he saw the shining eyes of the hyæna and was afraid. Slowly he learned all the lessons that a boar must know, and the forest yielded him some of her many secrets.

There was no real winter there. The forest enjoys almost perennial summer, but there is a rainy season when the days are cooler than at other times. Then the best lairs are under the Argan trees; when the greatest heat is on the land, the moist sandy places high up above the valley are best. Again, in the brief days of tempest the hollows and gorges are most sought for, since the wind cannot reach them.

Young Tusker learned to know how and when the weather would change. He knew if any stranger were coming down the wind ever so far away. The meaning of the cries that the herd uttered, the signs that showed if water was near, and the significance of the footmarks that crossed the forest in all directions; he learned all these things.

As he grew up, sleeping under the sun and feeding under the stars, finding food plentiful and life pleasant, Tusker gradually ceased to be little. His shaggy skin became covered with bristles, a bristly ridge covered his spine; his heavy head grew larger and heavier, and the milk-white tusks developed until the lower ones took the upward curve that made them formidable. He could fight now with his fellows, but little harm was done, for all boars learn to receive their neighbour’s tusk-thrusts on their own tusks or on the shoulders, where the hard, coarse skin is not readily torn.

With consciousness of strength came the desire to travel, and when Tusker found any track that moved him to curiosity, he would leave the herd to follow it. One night, when he was rather more than three years old, he saw the mark of a boar, the track of a large hoof, and he followed it industriously, leaving the herd far behind. The big hoof-prints fascinated him, he tracked them all through the night, and through the next night, too. Then, under an Argan tree, he found the stranger in his lair.

“What are you doing here?” said Tusker rather rudely.

“I am a recluse from the mountains,” said the stranger. “I have left family, friends and home, that I may live my life alone, and there is good feeding ground about here. I am three years’ old, and it is time to lead the solitary life.”

He spoke at length of the joys of the single state in which he lived all the year save for the brief period beginning with November, when he drove some charming young lady pig from the nearest herd to be his companion for a few weeks. He would tend her with all the care and love and affection of which a boar is capable, but leave her to rear the young and join the herd again when her litter was strong enough.

WILD BOAR [Photo by Ottomar Anchutz, Berlin]

Thereafter Tusker made his home under an Argan tree, separated from the rest of the forest by a wide clearing where wild thyme and toad flax and dwarf palm grew, and creeping plants climbed over the double-thorn bushes. During the fine weather he never went out by daylight unless it was to drink, but when the rains came he would eat by day. He was so constituted that one visit to the pools would suffice him for two or even three days; but the visit was a prolonged one, accompanied by endless precautions, for since he had become solitary he had become more nervous than ever, and when he ate or drank he would make sudden pauses to make sure that nobody was about. He relied more upon hearing than sight. The slightest unaccustomed sound when he was coming to the pool would send him grunting into the thicket, but if all was well he would permit himself to enjoy a very lively time. First, he would drink deeply, and then he would wallow in the mud for two or three minutes to ease the irritation of his skin.

The forest was very quiet at night in spite of hungry jackals and stray hyænas, and Tusker made very little noise as he travelled to his feeding grounds, always working against the wind. There were a few duars, or native villages, in the forest, and one or two large farmhouses built on the sun-dried clay called tapia that glows so white under the light of the moon. Tusker avoided farm and village but he could not leave the crops alone, and for the chance of a meal of young maize he was content to go where no other food would have taken him.

His keener perceptions taught him now that there was a great, inexplicable danger in the forest—something his mother had spoken about when he first joined the herd by her side; and, though he had forgotten the details, the sense of fear was never really absent from him, and it was strengthened by one or two events that took place in his first solitary year.

One night he met the recluse from his mountains looking as he had never seen pig look before. His coarse hair was matted with perspiration, he breathed heavily, his little eyes were full of the terror that comes to the hunted beast.

“I must eat a little,” said the recluse hoarsely, “my strength has almost gone,” and so saying he fell to and found a number of Argan nuts which he ate eagerly, though he paused to sniff the breeze every moment and ate head to wind. Tusker was astonished and uneasy.

“What’s the matter?” he said, when both had eaten.

“The Hunter of the Forest has been on my track these three days,” said the boar of the mountains. “I cannot shake him off, and unless I can reach the hills where he will not follow, I must die. The hills are two day’s journey and I am tired already. Twice I have broken through the pack.”

“The pack? What is that?” said Tusker curiously.

“There are twenty or more of them,” replied the mountain boar. “Dogs of mixed breed, some large, some small, all savage. With them come the stalkers, and in the track of the stalkers comes the hunter, and when he reaches me I must die. I have tried every trick known to me, you will learn in your time what they are, but now I am not sure if I shall get to the hills. I must seek a lair now and sleep. Perhaps this good food and a quiet rest will restore my strength.” He shambled off into the darkness, leaving Tusker full of terror, so fearful indeed that he would not go back to his old home, but wandered for some hours in the darkest part of the forest.

Only in the spring-time did he become quite courageous, but with the coming of April every living thing in the forest took heart of grace; even the stock-doves were ready to fight in defence of nest and young. Tusker felt the full joy of life too in November, when he had fought with several brother boars for the sake of a sow who summed up for him all his understanding of grace and beauty. He drove her from the herd and followed her for days when her other lovers were routed, he pursuing and she retreating all through the wild places of the forest.

Even the Hunter laid down his rifle for a brief season knowing that should he find boar and sow together, the boar would send the sow to make her escape, and would stand and fight to the death to give his beloved time to get away. When the season of love and war had passed Tusker left his companion to raise her litter and shift for herself; while, all his love forgotten, he resumed his solitary life and his accustomed nervousness.

Seven long years passed in the forest, and then in the third year of his seclusion, when he was in splendid condition, and provided with tusks that made him respected by all his fellows, the Hunter of the Forest found his tracks. All the forest paths had tracks of boars, old and new, some of small animals, some of large, and every track was plain as print to the Hunter. When he first caught sight of Tusker’s footmarks, he jumped off his horse.

“A great beast, Mohammed,” he said to the wiry, muscular Moor who followed him; “leans to the left when he walks, and must have some defect in his right hind hoof, for it makes the faintest mark of the four, he goes so lightly on it.” Then he made a few measurements and recorded them, and noted the exact position of the spot, and rode home very happy indeed, for his eyes, trained to the forest for nearly forty years, told him he was on the track of a very fine boar.

That night Tusker fed upon the green maize in the fields of a neighbouring farmer, returning before daybreak to his lair, where he slept until a slight rustle in the bushes near at hand startled him to wakefulness. A moment later, and a little lean mongrel dog showed at the entrance to his home.

“Come out and fight,” said the little lean mongrel dog showing his white teeth.

“Show me something worth fighting,” replied Tusker, showing his own terrible weapons, “and I’ll talk to you.”

“O Father of Tusks,” replied the little mongrel, “wait until I summon my twenty-three brethren,” and then he gave the call that summons the pack and gladdens the huntsman’s heart. Tusker, hearing answering yelps near and far, knew in a moment that the dogs had been hunting for him with their heads to the wind, so that he could not scent them, and realised that he was face to face with the most serious trouble of his life. He dashed out at once, before the pack had found time to gather round him, and made off as hard as he could through the forest.

Tusker led the pack through the most difficult country. He ran at double thorn bushes and passed right through them; the little dogs of the pack followed on his heels, and the big ones kept well on either side of the cover. And while he used his legs Tusker used his brain as well. “The hunter cannot keep up with us,” he said to himself, “if I turn to bay I’ll hurt a few of these fellows, and while he attends to them I’ll get further off.”

Ten minutes later, he slowed down and allowed the foremost among the pack to reach him. Most were scratched and torn by the thorns that could not penetrate Tusker’s hide, but they were game, and the first comers flung themselves upon him. Tusker enjoyed the next minute or two, bitten and worried though he was, and when he broke through the pack and started off again his tusks, that had been white, were red, almost as red as his angry little eyes, Three dogs were gasping on the ground, one dying and the other two so badly ripped that had they been in an air less pure they must have died before nightfall.

The Hunter came up before the sound of the pursuit had quite rolled away, examined each dog quickly but carefully, gave a surgical needle, some thread and a little bottle to one of the trackers, and started off with the rest of the company. The tracker washed and sewed the wounds of the two living dogs, made them as comfortable as he could and left them for one of the servants to bring home. As they had not been fed for four and twenty hours he knew they would recover from their wounds.

Meanwhile Tusker rumbled through a scrub so dense and prickly that, by taking a sudden turn in a thicket, he was able to let the pack pass him. Quick as thought he doubled on his own tracks a little way, then turned sharp to the right avoiding the huntsman and his party, and made straight for a little river. He paused on the brink and drank, but did not dare to wallow or cover his hot head with the cool mud, for he heard in the distance the cry of the hounds at fault and the voice of the huntsman cheering them to find the line again. He forded the river, landing some distance lower down on the opposite bank, and travelled a few hundred yards into the forest.

“Safe at last,” said Tusker, and began to hunt for a lair, going backwards and forwards, sometimes travelling in a circle, and testing the softness of the ground with his snout. At last he found a soft sheltered thicket, and rested from his labours, resolving to wallow by the river at nightfall.

The Hunter was puzzled while his pack endeavoured in vain to find the line. The trackers went on to where the scrub became thin, and tracks could show, but there were no fresh marks to guide them. Then the Hunter cast back, guessing shrewdly that Tusker had doubled on his own line; but the ground gave him no help, and the luncheon hour found the party still perplexed.

“If he went to the north,” said the Hunter, “we may not find his track for weeks. If he went in any other direction he must cross the river so we will work the banks.” And when the simple meal was over the Hunter led his trackers to the water, and they studied every mark on the bank. Several times the trackers thought they had found their quarry, for they met perfectly fresh prints among others that were any age from a day to a week, but the Hunter’s eye was looking for the marks of a certain set of hoofs, of which the right hind one made the least mark, while the balance was ever on the left side, and the distances were as recorded in his notes.

Some time about four o’clock the Hunter found the track, and forded the river; and, just before sunset, saw where it led to the forest. He summoned his admiring trackers, but forebore to proceed. “The day after to-morrow at daybreak,” was all he said, and then the party made its way home in the fast failing light, by no means dissatisfied with the day’s work.

On that night Tusker wallowed long and comfortably, and uprooted a fine lot of wild radishes and turnips. His new lair was comfortable and he was no worse for his adventure, but he was ill-pleased on the morning of the second day when without word or warning a mongrel, whose face seemed familiar, showed at the entrance to his lair and called on him to fight.

Quick as thought, without word of parley Tusker rushed out and sought the impenetrable covers that had helped him before. He crossed the river and gained on his pursuers.

In a clearing amid the thickets he came suddenly upon a herd that scattered in all directions as he gave word of the following pack.

Once more dogs were at fault, but the Hunter was not. Within an hour after, careful scrutiny of a score of tracks, he had picked out that of a boar that ran with a list to the left, and trod lightly on its right hind hoof, and moved at a certain recorded pace with certain recorded distances between the hoofs.

Within two hours the hounds were closing in on Tusker whose way to comparative safety lay over a large expanse of forest that was more or less open. Beyond that part the thicket was the worst in the forest, and the Hunter knew that the chances would be with the boar if he could reach that stronghold. When Tusker heard the pack bearing down upon him, he realised that the Hunter was his master, and that only good luck could save him now. He thought of the solitary pig from the mountains and wondered if he looked like him in the hour of his distress.

“I’ll try again,” said Tusker to himself, as he found the dogs gaining on him in the more open country. “The Hunter may be far behind,” and then he set his fore-legs firmly on the ground and faced the furious howling pack, using his terrible tusks with all the force he could put behind them.

A few moments later he saw the Hunter emerging from the bush, and broke through again with the dogs, cut and wounded, upon his heels, encouraged by their master’s voice.

He could not go far now. Once again he turned and faced his adversaries, forgetting everything now in his rage and conscious only of a lust for blood.

Suddenly there was a shrill whistle, and before it ceased to echo, the pack opened to the right and left, leaving Tusker alone. He looked up uncertain what to do, saw the Hunter standing sixty or seventy yards away from him with a shining barrel at his shoulder, felt a sudden violent shock, heard as in the far distance a sharp strange sound, knew that the dogs were upon him again, but could not feel their teeth or the ground he was lying on.

Another whistle, the dogs parted again, the Hunter came up knife in hand, his trackers following.

“No need,” he said, thrusting the shining steel into its case. “The bullet went to the heart. A splendid fellow.”

[4]

The Argan Forest is in Southern Morocco, and takes its name from the Argan, a species of olive tree.

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