Benedetto, as soon as we discovered the tracks, slipped off his horse, changed his leggings for sandals, threw his rifle over his arm, and took the trail of the herd, followed by the only dog which would accompany him.  The peccaries had gone into a broad belt of forest, with a marsh on the farther side.  At first Antonio led the colonel and me, all of us on horseback, at a canter round this belt to the marsh side, thinking the peccaries had gone almost through it.  But we could hear nothing.  The dog only occasionally barked, and then not loudly.  Finally we heard a shot.  Benedetto had found the herd, which showed no fear of him; he had backed out and fired a signal shot.  We all three went into the forest on foot toward where the shot had been fired.  It was dense jungle and stiflingly hot.  We could not see clearly for more than a few feet, or move easily without free use of the machetes.  Soon we heard the ominous groaning of the herd, in front of us, and almost on each side.  Then Benedetto joined us, and the dog appeared in the rear.  We moved slowly forward, toward the sound of the fierce moaning grunts which were varied at times by a castanet chattering of the tusks.  Then we dimly made out the dark forms of the peccaries moving very slowly to the left.  My companions each chose a tree to climb at need and pointed out one for me.  I fired at the half-seen form of a hog, through the vines, leaves, and branches; the colonel fired; I fired three more shots at other hogs; and the Indian also fired.  The peccaries did not charge; walking and trotting, with bristles erect, groaning and clacking their tusks, they disappeared into the jungle.  We could not see one of them clearly; and not one was left dead.  But a few paces on we came across one of my wounded ones, standing at bay by a palm trunk; and I killed it forthwith.  The dog would not even trail the wounded ones; but here Antonio came to the front.  With eyes almost as quick and sure as those of a wild beast he had watched after every shot, and was able to tell the results in each case.  He said that in addition to the one I had just killed I had wounded two others so seriously that he did not think they would go far, and that Colonel Rondon and he himself had each badly wounded one; and, moreover, he showed the trails each wounded animal had taken.  The event justified him.  In a few minutes we found my second one dead.  Then we found Antonio’s.  Then we found my third one alive and at bay, and I killed it with another bullet.  Finally we found the colonel’s.  I told him I should ask the authorities of the American Museum to mount his and one or two of mine in a group, to commemorate our hunting together.

If we had not used crippling rifles the peccaries might have gotten away, for in the dark jungle, with the masses of intervening leaves and branches, it was impossible to be sure of placing each bullet properly in the half-seen moving beast.  We found where the herd had wallowed in the mud.  The stomachs of the peccaries we killed contained wild figs, palm nuts, and bundles of root fibres.  The dead beasts were covered with ticks.  They were at least twice the weight of the smaller peccaries.