There were fishes in the stream. He could see them calmly fanning the water in a pool beside the rocks. Fish were always good. His mouth watered at thought of the fry he would have on the hot rocks. But he had no hooks. He tried a snare of tie-tie vine, but the fish were too quick for him.
At last, despairing of his undertaking, he dropped on hands and knees to creep away into the bush. He had not gone far before his heart was gladdened by what he saw just before him. It was a hot, humid morning. A peccary, a little wild pig, with her half grown brood, having without doubt spent the cooler hours of night hunting grubs and roots, lay stretched out on a bed of dead ferns, fast asleep. One of the young porkers, lying with his two hind feet close together, was not twelve feet from where Johnny lay.
“A quick grab at those feet, a sudden get-away, and I have my breakfast,” he thought as he moved cautiously forward. “That fellow doesn’t weigh over ten pounds dressed, but that’s enough food for two days and by that time I’ll be back to camp.” Oh, vain hope!
Right hand out, right foot forward; left hand, left foot. So he moved ahead. Now half the distance was covered and still the little wild pigs slept. Now he was within arm’s length of his prey. Then, rising to his knees, he shot out a hand. There came a wild, piercing squeal, then all was commotion.
Quicker than he could think, the old peccary was after him.
“Insignificant little brute,” he thought. “I could brain you with a single blow of a club.”
A convenient tree offered protection. Clinging to his squealing prey, he leaped to the first branch.
“Go away in a moment,” he told himself as with his clasp-knife he silenced the squeals of the young porker.
To his immense surprise, as he looked down he saw that the ground was literally alive with angry, grunting peccary pigs.
“Where’d they all come from?” he asked an hour later, as for the twentieth time he adjusted his sore muscles to their cramped position.
This question no one could answer. The angry horde had apparently declared the tree to be in a state of siege. And, though they were small, they were terrible to look at. There were gnarled old fathers of that herd whose ugly yellow tusks, curled twice round, stood out at the end like spears.