When I scrambled up I saw the rope tighten until it sung in the air like a bowstring, and then slacken again. I could not see the boar, as he was hidden in the long grass; but I seized my sharpened stick lance and ran toward where he ought to be. Suddenly the great brute emerged from the grass, facing me, and charged toward me, evidently bent on mischief, the flakes of froth flying from his tusks. There was no time to get out of the way, nor even get the lance around into position, and I thought I should speedily feel his sharp tusks. He was almost upon me before I could realize the situation. Just at this critical juncture I felt the lasso fly up under my feet, throwing me over backward, and I caught a glimpse of the boar as he turned a half-somersault and plunged down on his side. When he fell he was not two feet from me. The lasso had been doubled around a bush and had thus brought the desperate creature up just in time to save me. The lance was still in my grasp, and I got to my feet before my enemy could recover. Now it was my turn. Knowing he could not reach me on this side, I came close up to him as he was making the dirt fly with his legs in a vain endeavor to get up, and drove the sharpened stick with all my force and weight into his side, just back of the shoulder.
This ended the battle as the stick went half-way through him. Panting for breath and with the perspiration fairly running into my eyes, I turned away and left him to die in peace, and went to look after the pig, thinking I had been a great fool to tackle the boar at all. I found the pig still struggling with the bolas wrapped around him. I immediately determined to keep this one alive. To do this, I must get my lasso loose from the dying boar. When I went back I found him just kicking his last. With the lasso I secured the pig in such manner that he could not get away, and then removed the bolas and let him up, giving him very little rope as I had no mind to let him run into the brush and entangle himself. I then proceeded to flay the boar, cutting off the hams and choicer parts, and securing as much of the lard and fat as I was able. I carried this down the bed of the creek to the house. I then went back for the pig and endeavored to get him home alive; but I found it utterly impossible to do so, as the vicious, obstinate brute could not be made to go in any but the wrong direction. So I was finally obliged to haul him tight up against a tree and kill him.