ted of me. I was not to cry out in the face of fear. It was a
dictate of instinct. And so I sat there and waited for I knew not what.
The boar thrust the ferns aside and stepped into the open. The curiosity
went out of his eyes, and they gleamed cruelly. He tossed his head at me
threateningly and advanced a step. This he did again, and yet again.

Then I screamed...or shrieked--I cannot describe it, but it was a
shrill and terrible cry. And it seems that it, too, at this stage of
the proceedings, was the thing expected of me. From not far away came an
answering cry. My sounds seemed momentarily to disconcert the boar, and
while he halted and shifted his weight with indecision, an apparition
burst upon us.

She was like a large orangutan, my mother, or like a chimpanzee, and
yet, in sharp and definite ways, quite different. She was heavier of
build than they, and had less hair. Her arms were not so long, and her
legs were stouter. She wore no clothes--only her natural hair. And I can
tell you she was a fury when she was excited.

And like a fury she dashed upon the scene. She was gritting her teeth,
making frightful grimaces, snarling, uttering sharp and continuous
cries that sounded like "kh-ah! kh-ah!" So sudden and formidable was her
appearance that the boar involuntarily bunched himself together on
the defensive and bristled as she swerved toward him. Then she swerved
toward me. She had quite taken the breath out of him. I knew just what
to do in that moment of time she had gained. I leaped to meet her,
catching her about the waist and holding on hand and foot--yes, by my
feet; I could hold on by them as readily as by my hands. I could feel
in my tense grip the pull of the hair as her skin and her muscles moved
beneath with her efforts.

As I say, I leaped to meet her, and on the instant she leaped straight
up into the air, catching an overhanging branch with her hands. The next
instant, with clashing tusks, the boar drove past underneath. He had
recovered from his surprise and sprung forward, emitting a squeal that
was almost a trumpeting. At any rate it was a call, for it was
followed by the rushing of bodies through the ferns and brush from all
directions.

From every side wild hogs dashed into the open space--a score of them.
But my mother swung over the top of a thick limb, a dozen feet from the
ground, and, still holding on to her, we perched there in safety. She
was very excited. She chattered and screame