13 Tiger Adventure by Willard Price Page A

about a bed?’ Vic demanded.
    ‘I’ve a notion that you will need it before the day is over.’
    Hal drove the truck to a place in the forest that he thought was just the sort a wild boar would love. There were many trees, but also much undergrowth - hundreds of bushes Where wild boar would like to hide until the moment came to charge upon any intruder.
    Very carefully watching both right and left, the boys crept through the woods. Their nerves were taut. The great tusks of a boar might at any moment sink into the flesh of one of them. And when the beast had finished one boy, he would probably turn on the other.
    The boys were not far from their cabin, but it seemed a million miles away. Would they ever get back to it?
    Then they saw it - a huge beast with a long nose and savage teeth, two of which were too large to be contained in its mouth. They were the murdering tusks. The animal was turning up the ground hunting for juicy roots. Hal prepared to use his sleep-gun.
    Before he could do so there was the crack of a rifle. Whoever had fired was not a very good shot. The bullet passed over the animal’s back, only scratching his skin.
    Immediately the boar charged - not towards the Hunts, but towards Vic Stone who had dared to fire at the lord of the pig world. Vic yelled to high heaven as the long sharp tusks dug into his side. Then the boar, quite satisfied that he had killed his enemy, started to amble away.
    Hal fired his sleep-gun. His aim was correct but the boar did not fall at once. Instead, he glared about, trying to see where that tickle in his flank had come from.
    He saw nothing but a viper. The boar is not an animal of great intelligence. Perhaps this snake was the cause of his trouble.
    He seized the snake in the middle and started to eat it. The viper turned its head and stung him on the lips. Again and again it attacked him. The terribly poisonous snake was conquering the great beast. The wild boar sank down and died. His death had not been caused by the sleep-gun, nor even by the rifle.
    But Vic, suffering from his wounds, took the credit. He and his trusty rifle had killed that monster - so he thought.
    He staggered to his feet. He had to get home quickly and lie down. He could hardly walk.
    Take him home on the truck,’ Hal said to Roger. Roger did so.
    Jim was not surprised to see the great gunman limp in and fall on his bed. He stripped off the fool’s clothes and did what he could to stop the bleeding from two holes in Vic’s side.
    ‘I was waiting for you.’ Jim said, ‘But I didn’t expect you back so soon.’
    ‘It was all Hunt’s fault.’ Vic mumbled. ‘If he hadn’t gone after a wild boar I wouldn’t have been hurt.’
    Roger drove back to find his brother in a new fight. Another boar, perhaps of the same family, had come running, only to be stopped by another snake. Hal was learning that this particular woodland was the home of many serpent. This one was not a viper. It was a twelve-foot-long boa constrictor. It resented being stepped upon by the big brute. It flung up its head over the neck of the boar and proceeded to coil itself all round the big body. But, unlike the viper, it did not sting.
    ‘What is it trying to do?’ Roger asked.
    ‘Well, it’s a constrictor. That means it’s a squeezer, not a poisoner. It will try to squeeze the boar so tightly that it can’t breathe. If we want that boar we have to move fast or he’ll die before we can get him home.’
    Several men had now appeared from the nearest village. They had seen many strange things in their lives, but this was the first time they had seen a snake hugging a boar.
    Hal said, ‘Help us carry this animal out and put him on the truck.’
    ‘But how are you going to get the snake off him?’
    ‘We’ll just leave it on until we get him in the cage - if he doesn’t die first because he can’t breathe.’
    The men helped carry the beast and its wraparound snake and put it in the truck. Then they all hopped