It was very dry and hot. Where the javalinas live in droves in the river
bottoms they often drink at the pools; but when some distance from water
they seem to live quite comfortably on the prickly pear, slaking their
thirst by eating its hard, juicy fibre.
At last, after several false alarms, and gallops which led to nothing,
when it lacked but an hour of sundown we struck a band of five of the
little wild hogs. They were running off through the mesquites with a
peculiar hopping or bounding motion, and we all, dogs and men, tore
after them instantly.
Peccaries are very fast for a few hundred yards, but speedily tire, lose
their wind, and come to bay. Almost immediately one of these, a sow, as
it turned out, wheeled and charged at Moore as he passed, Moore never
seeing her but keeping on after another. The sow then stopped and stood
still, chattering her teeth savagely, and I jumped off my horse and
dropped her dead with a shot in the spine, over the shoulders. Moore
meanwhile had dashed off after his pig in one direction, and killed
the little beast with a shot from the saddle when it had come to bay,
turning and going straight at him.
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