Nearer and nearer they crept, making very little sound; but they made enough to rouse a young boar, who jerked his head into the air, where he stood among the acorns, big, furry ears high and wide, nose working nervously.

“He’s only a yearling,” 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 squealing.  From the ridge the two deer, who had sneaked back, regarded the scene with terrified fascination.

Presently the yearling rushed them out again, then sidled down, venturing to the edge of the feeding-ground, where he began to crunch acorns again with a cautious eye on the sow and her noisy brood.