“That would have been impossible, for we could not have foreseen it ourselves if we had arranged the joke; he simply meant to mislead us, and then we acted the fool for his amusement.”

It looked very much as if Nick Ribsam was correct in his supposition, and that Bowser enjoyed even more than they the shrewd trick he had played on them.

“I suppose there are several hundred hogs wandering through the woods,” said Nick, “picking up acorns and nuts that have fallen off the trees, and making a good living at it.”

“Yes, lots of them have been running wild for weeks and months,” added Sam, “and when their owners try to gather them in, there will be trouble, for it doesn’t take hogs long to become savage.”

“It didn’t take that hog very long, I’m sure,” observed Herbert, sitting down with care upon the ground.

“But how was it there was but one?” asked Sam.

“There wasn’t need of any more than one,” said Nick; “he had no trouble in doing as he pleased with us.”

“But hogs go in droves, and you wouldn’t be apt to find one of them by himself in the woods.”

“There were others close by, for I am sure I heard them; but it is a little curious that they didn’t attack us, for hogs don’t know as much as dogs, and they had no reason to feel that one of their number was more than enough for us.”

“I don’t see the use in talking about it,” remarked Herbert, who gently tipped his body to the other side, so as to rest differently on the ground; “I am sure I never was so upset in all my life.”

“Nor were we,” added Nick; “hogs are queer creatures; if a drove finds it is going to be attacked by an enemy, the boars will place themselves on the outside, with the sows and younger ones within, so as to offer the best resistance to the bear or whatever it is, and they will fight with great fury.  In a wild state, they can run fast, and when the tusks of the boars get to be six or eight inches long, as they do in time, they are afraid of no animal in the woods.”

“How is that?” asked Herbert, again shifting his position with great care, but feeling interested in what the lad was telling.

“I suppose because they haven’t any reason to be afraid.  With those frightful tusks curving upward from the lower jaw, and with a strength like Sampson in their necks, they can rip up a bear, a tiger, or any animal that dare attack them.”

“I s’pose they’re very strong, Nick?” continued Herbert.

“So strong, indeed, that one of the wild boars in Germany has run under the horse of a hunter, and, lifting both clear from the ground, trotted fifty yards with them, before the struggling animal could get himself loose.”

Herbert looked fixedly at the narrator for a moment, then solemnly reached out his hand to Sam, for him to shake over the last astounding statement, which was altogether too much for him to credit.