The Runaway Settlers by Elsie Locke Page A

and had turned up a small pile of potatoes, still puzzling, when she heard voices.
    ‘Mother! Mother!’ called Bill. ‘There’s a Mrs Dobbs that has pullets. You can get them as soon as the hen run is ready. We saw a lot of houses—how many, Jack?’
    ‘About six!’ said Jack. ‘Mr Parsons goes to Lyttelton in a boat with oars, and a sail. When can we get a boat, Mother?’
    ‘Hold on!’ she laughed. ‘We must get through the winter first. What I want to know is: who has been stealing our potatoes?’
    Jack gave a quick glance at the torn patch of earth.
    ‘Wild pigs,’ he said promptly.
    ‘Pigs!’
    ‘Yes! Mr Dyer said they’re real pests, and you’re to watch out, they might go for Emma or Jim. And besides—I saw the robber this morning.’
    Jack told his story, which had somehow been forgotten in all the rush of work.
    ‘So! We must dig the crop at once and remove the temptation,’ said Mrs Phipps.
    ‘Now, Mother? Must we?’ pleaded Bill.
    She took pity on him. ‘No—I’ll have Archie and Jim help me tomorrow. Today we’ll stack a heap of firewood: all sizes, every kind, and I’ll find out which of them burn the best.’
    The owls were beginning to call ‘morepork’ from the hills when Jack gathered his last armful. Most of the big logs were rotten, but his mother needed good sized pieces for that greatfireplace. When he saw a dry branch twice as thick as his arm sticking out from a shrub, Jack pulled.
    He might have been hauling on a bell-rope, so quickly came the noise of rumbling and grunting. For the second time that day Jack found himself face to face with a young boar— the boar.
    Before Jack could retreat, the boar charged. With a bound, catching at an overhead branch with his good arm, Jack swung himself clear, but there was not enough strength in his other shoulder to haul his body up and he had to let go and race around the tree to climb it from the trunk. He sat astride a branch while his angry enemy scraped and backed about among the leaves below.
    Should he call out and bring Bill running to help him? No! Jack wanted to settle accounts himself with this robber who had tried to beat him down. He had heard talk of pig hunting among the shepherds at Cashmere and desperately tried to remember. They used dogs, and he had no dog; but he took out his sheath-knife and felt the point. The flax-cutting had not blunted it.
    Very quietly he began to ease himself along the branch until it drooped beneath his weight. The boar backed. Jack slid farther: the boar moved again. Had the beast come forward and raised his head, he could have reached Jack’s ankle; but he stood back, waiting his opportunity.
    Well then, Jack must be first! He braced himself against a second branch, took a flying leap and landed on top of the boar. Somewhere in the back of his memory he could hear a voice saying: Take him by the hind leg and turn him over.
    Jack grabbed at the leg and held it tightly. But how was he to turn the boar over, while only his own weight kept thelashing beast under control? Perhaps the boar would get tired first! He held on grimly, grunting like the pig with his own exertion, keeping his left hand on the knife.
    Then sharply, suddenly, he rolled off, pulled the boar with him and saw the throat stretched out beneath the snout. He thrust out with all the strength his left arm could muster and drove the point into the skin. The boar gave a violent lurch and kicked him over.
    Jack scrambled to his feet and did not wait for more. The pain in his shoulder told him that he would never have the strength to repeat the blow. He ran away from the hideous squealing, back down the slope to the cottage. He must get Bill to come with the axe.
    In the glow of the firelight he saw his mother take out the damper she had made for their supper. It was a round of dough shaped like a huge scone, made of flour and salt and water, and cooked on a flat stone among the embers. The damper smelt warm and mellow, but it