On this particular Frio ranch the
last little band had been killed nearly a year before. There were three
of them, a boar and two sows, and a couple of the cowboys stumbled on
them early one morning while out with a dog. After half a mile's
chase the three peccaries ran into a hollow pecan tree, and one of the
cowboys, dismounting, improvised a lance by tying his knife to the end
of a pole, and killed them all.
Many anecdotes were related to me of what they had done in the old days
when they were plentiful on the ranch. They were then usually found in
parties of from twenty to thirty, feeding in the dense chaparral, the
sows rejoining the herd with the young very soon after the birth of the
litter, each sow usually having but one or two at a litter. At night
they sometimes lay in the thickest cover, but always, where possible,
preferred to house in a cave or big hollow log, one invariably remaining
as a sentinel close to the mouth, looking out. If this sentinel were
shot, another would almost certainly take his place.
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