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Jack and the Varmints!
Part II.
When the King rode up there and saw it was that wild hog, he like to
beat his horse to death gettin' back. Blowed his horn and fifty or sixty
men came runnin' up. They took a lot of Winchester rifles and went on up
to that old house; but they were so scared they wouldn't go close enough
to get a shoot at it. So fin'ly Jack he went on down there, poked around
with a rifle and shot two or three times. That old hog went to tearin'
around and when it fell it had tore that house plumb down.
So the King's men skinned it out. Hit made two wagonloads of meat.
The King paid Jack the thousand dollars, and Jack started to pull out
for home.
The King called him, says, "I got another job for ye, Jack. They say
there's a unicorn usin' back here on another mountain, coin' a sight of
damage to people's livestock. Hit's a lot more dangerous than that hog,
but a brave feller like you oughtn't to have no trouble killin' it. I'll
pay ye another thousand dollars, too."
Well, Jack tried to back out of it, but he saw he couldn't, so the King
took him up there where they said the unicorn was, turned his horse around
and just burnt the wind.
Jack watched the King out of sight, says, "Thousand dollars'll do me
a right long while. I don't want to get mixed up with no unicorn. I'll
get out of here and go back another way. I'm not a-goin' to fool around
here and get killed." But Jack hadn't gone very far 'fore he heard that
varmint breakin' bresh and a-comin' straight down the mountain. So Jack
started runnin' around in amongst the trees as hard as he could tear. Looked
around directly and saw that old unicorn so close to him it was just about
to make a lunge and stick that horn right through the middle of his back.
Jack reached out and grabbed hold on a white oak tree, swung around behind
it. The unicorn swerved at hirn, hit that oak tree and stove its horn plumb
through it. Horn came out the other side, and like to stuck Jack. Time
he saw that, he snatched some nails out'n his overhall pocket, grabbed
him up a rock right quick and wedged the horn in tight. Then he got him
a switch and swarped the unicorn a few times to see could it break loose;
saw it couldn't, so he pulled on back down to the King's house.
"What luck did ye have this time, Jack?"
"Why, King, I didn't see no unicorn."
"Now, that's a curious thing to me, Jack. Nobody else ever went in there
but what that old unicorn came right for 'em. What did ye see, Jack?"
"Nothin' much, just some kind of a little old yearlin' bull, didn't
have but one horn. Came down there actin' big, a-bawlin' and pawin' the
ground. Got to follerin' me around pretty close and sort of gougin' at
me with that horn, till fin'ly hit kind of aggravated me. So I took it
by the tail and neck, stove its horn through a tree. I reckon it's still
fastened up there where I left it at. We can all go on up and see it if
ye want to."
So Jack took the King and his men with all them rifles up where the
unicorn was. They wouldn't none of 'em get close enough to get a good aim,
so Jack went on up to it, cut him a little branch and switched it two or
three times, says, "See, men? There's not a bit of harm in him."
The men fin'ly shot it, and when it fell, they say it tore that oak
tree plumb up by the roots.
Then they skinned it and brought back the hide.
The King paid Jack another thousand dollars, says, "Now, Jack, they've
just brought in word here that a lion has come over the mountains from
somewhere in Tennessee, been makin' raids on a settle-ment over the other
end of this county, killin' ever'thing it comes across: cattle, and horses,
and they say it's done killed several men tried to go after it. I told
'em about you, Jack, and they made me promise to send ye.
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