The dogs went nearer and nearer, jumping away whenever the boar made an attack.  At last they seized him by the roots of his ears, one on each side, and held on.  Bob Atkins and Bill approached the combatants, carrying some strong cord, of New Zealand flax.  A running noose was secured round the hind legs of the boar; he was then thrown on his side, and his forelegs were tied together.

Lion and Tiger stood near panting, with blood dripping from their open jaws.  Philip could not imagine why Bill did not butcher the beast at once; it seemed impossible that a leathery old savage like that could ever be transformed into tender pork.  For the present he was left prone on the field of battle, and the pig hunt proceeded.  There was soon much squealing of pigs, and barking of dogs among the tussocks.  Gleenson’s dog pinned a young boar, and after its legs were tied Philip agreed to stand by and guard it, while Gleeson fetched the cart.  But the boar soon slipped the cord from his legs, and at once attacked his nearest enemy, rushing at Philip and trying to rip open his boots.  Philip’s first impulse was to take out his revolver, and shoot; but he was always conscientious, and it occurred to him that he would be committing a breach of trust, as he had undertaken to guard the game alive until Gleeson came back with the cart.  So he tried to fight the pig with his boots, kicking him on the jaws right and left.  But the pig proved a stubborn fighter, and kept coming up to the scratch again and again, until Philip felt he had got into a serious difficulty.  He began to think as well as to kick quickly.

“If I could only throw the animal to the ground I could hold him down.”

The dogs had shown him that the proper mode of seizing a hog was by the ears, so at the next round he seized both ears and held them.  There was a pause in the fight, and Philip took advantage of it to address his enemy after the manner of the Greeks and Trojans.

“I have got you at last, my friend, and the curse of Cromwell on you, I’d like to murder you without mercy; and if Gleeson don’t come soon he’ll find here nothing but dead pig.  I must try to throw you somehow.”  After examining the pig narrowly he continued, “It will be done by the hind legs.”

He let go one ear and seized a hind leg instead, taking the enemy, as it were, both in front and rear.  For some time there was much kicking and squealing, until one scientific kick and a sudden twist of the hind quarters brought the quarry to earth.

Philip knelt on the ribs of his foe, still holding one ear and one hind leg.  Then he proceeded with his speech, gasping for breath: 

“And this is what happens to a poor man in Australia!  Here have I been fighting a wild beast of a pig for half an hour, just to keep him alive, and all to oblige a cockatoo farmer, and small thanks to me for that same.  May all the curses—­the Lord preserve us and give us patience; I am forgetting the twelve virtues entirely.”