“Don’t be a coward! _Into_ this, you boob!” he swore at himself, as he drove forward through the tangle of jungle growth. He ran out on a great prone trunk and peered into the moving bushes. They were going by, grunting and squealing with mixed terror and anger--five of them, and two great big fellows, with long, wicked ivory tushes curling around their snouts. Dwight raised the twenty-bore, followed along back of the shoulder of the nearest, and fired. Instantly a bawl of pain and rage went up as the boar stopped, whirling about a broken foreleg and looking about him red eyed with rage. The rest went thundering on, and a boom from the curator’s gun rang through the jungle. Dwight’s boar spied him and came hitching toward him on three legs, grunting his rage. The boy had opened his gun to slip in another shell, so eager was he to have plenty of shots. In an electric shock of realization, he saw that he had not time to do anything of the sort. Hastily snapping it shut, he drew a wavering bead and fired again. The ball hit somewhere in the shoulder and glanced off, but it put the boar in a frightful rage. He charged the log with a red glare in his eyes and leaped up, his tusks sweeping the upper surface of it. Dwight leaped off and reloaded frantically in the brief breathing space left him. With a leap like a deer, the boar went over the trunk, while Dwight fired both barrels full into his head at six feet, and then turned and dashed into the jungle. A great vine caught under his armpits as the boy crashed into it, and it laid him sprawling in the thick bush growth. He wormed through it desperately, and reloaded, wondering all the time why he had not been gored and trampled to death. His heart pounded so that its rapid beats were audible as he opened his mouth to breathe. Then he realized that the boar had not followed, and, plucking up courage, he stole back to look. There lay the boar, threshing feebly about beside the log, his life slowly ebbing away. Dwight watched him, afraid to come nearer, scarce daring to hope that he had won. A final convulsion, and the boar seemed to go to sleep as he gave a last little sigh and stretched his great head out on the jungle. “Whoops! I’ve got him!” yelled Dwight, stepping nearer to prod at the carcass with his gun barrels. “Had a fat time with him, too, judging by the noise!” laughed the curator’s voice. “I got one, too--nice pig.” Dwight remembered that the curator had fired but one shot--coolly and carefully placed, no doubt, but he was not ashamed. He had done well, for his first try! Nicky had not fired at all, for the rest of the drove had swerved and crossed the creek in a splash at the two gunshots. He and the curator came over to look at his trophy.