" breathed Scott in his sister's ear. "There are
traces of stripes, if you look hard. Wait for a better one."

They lay silent, all three peering down at the yearling, who stood
motionless, nosing for tainted air, listening, peering about with dull,
near-sighted eyes.

And, after a long time, as they made no sound, the brute wheeled
suddenly, made a complete circle at a nervous trout, uttered a series of
short, staccato sounds that, when he became older, would become deeper,
more of an ominous roar than a hoarse and irritated grunt.

Two deer, a doe and a fawn, came picking their way cautiously along the
edge of the gully, sometimes flattening their ears, sometimes necks
outstretched, ears forward, peering ahead at the young and bad-tempered
pig.

The latter saw them, turned in fury and charged with swiftness
incredible, and the deer stampeded headlong through the forest.

"What a fierce, little brute!" whispered Kathleen, appalled. "Scott, if
he comes any nearer, I'm going to get into a tree."

"If he sees us or winds us he'll run. Don't move; there may be a good
boar in presently. I've thought two or three times that I heard
something on that hemlock ridge."

They listened, holding their breath. Crack! went a distant stick.
Silence; nothing stirred except the yearling who had returned to the
mast and was eagerly nosing among the acorns. They could hear him
crunching the husks, see the gleam of long white teeth which one day
would grow outside that furry muzzle and curve up and backward like
ivory sabres.

Geraldine whispered: "There's a huge black thing moving in the hemlock
scrub. I can see its feet against the sky-line, and sometimes part of
its bulk----"

"Oh, heavens," breathed Kathleen, "what is that?"

Out of the scrub trotted a huge, shaggy, black thing, all head and
shoulders, with body slanting back abruptly to a pair of weak
hindquarters. Down the slope it ran in quick, noiseless, jerky steps;
the yearling turned his head, still munching, ears cocked forward. And
suddenly the monster rushed at him with a squeal, and the yearling
shrieked and fled, chased clear up the slope.

"It's a sow; don't shoot," whispered Scott. "Look, Sis, you can't see a
sign of tusks. Good heavens, what a huge creature she is!"

Fierce, formidable, the great beast halted; three striped, partly grown
pigs came rushing and frisking down the gully to join her, filling the
forest with their clumsy clatter and baby squeali