sounded to ascertain Michel's
whereabout, to which he answered. In less than ten minutes the three
hunters had rejoined the gardener with his hounds and horses.

Michel had seen a boar which he had sent his son to head off, and it was
now in the woods not a hundred paces distant. Jacques, Michel's eldest
son, beat up the woods with Barbichon and Ravaude, the heads of the
pack, and in about five minutes the boar was found in his lair. They
could have killed him at once, or at least shot at him, but that would
have ended the hunt too quickly. The huntsmen launched the whole pack
at the animal, which, seeing this troop of pygmies swoop down upon
him, started off at a slow trot. He crossed the road, Roland giving the
view-halloo, and headed in the direction of the Chartreuse of Seillon,
the three riders following the path which led through the woods. The
boar led them a chase which lasted until five in the afternoon, turning
upon his tracks, evidently unwilling to leave the forest with its thick
undergrowth.

At last the violent barking of the dogs warned them that the animal had
been brought to bay. The spot was not a hundred paces distant from
the pavilion belonging to the Chartreuse, in one of the most tangled
thickets of the forest. It was impossible to force the horses through
it, and the riders dismounted. The barking of the dogs guided them
straight along the path, from which they deviated only where the
obstacles they encountered rendered it necessary.

From time to time yelps of pain indicated that members of the attacking
party had ventured too close to the animal, and had paid the price of
their temerity. About twenty feet from the scene of action the hunters
began to see the actors. The boar was backed against a rock to avoid
attack in the rear; then, bracing himself on his forepaws, he faced the
dogs with his ensanguined eyes and enormous tusks. They quivered around
him like a moving carpet; five or six, more or less badly wounded, were
staining the battlefield with their blood, though still attacking the
boar with a fury and courage that might have served as an example to the
bravest men.

Each hunter faced the scene with the characteristic signs of his age,
nature and nation. Edouard, at one and the same time, the most imprudent
and the smallest, finding the path less difficult, owing to his small,
stature, arrived first. Roland, heedless of danger of any kind, seeking
rather than avoiding it, followed. F