g form. Renardet perceived this, and, abruptly
taking off his coat, he flung it over the little girl, who was entirely
hidden from view beneath the large garment.

The secretary drew near quietly. The wood was filled with people, and a
continuous hum of voices rose up under the tangled foliage of the tall
trees.

The mayor, in his shirt sleeves, remained standing, with his stick in his
hands, in a fighting attitude. He seemed exasperated by this curiosity on
the part of the people and kept repeating:

"If one of you come nearer I'll break his head just as I would a dog's."

The peasants were greatly afraid of him. They held back. Dr. Labarbe, who
was smoking, sat down beside La Roque and spoke to her in order to
distract her attention. The old woman at once removed her hands from her
face and replied with a flood of tearful words, emptying her grief in
copious talk. She told the whole story of her life, her marriage, the
death of her man, a cattle drover, who had been gored to death, the
infancy of her daughter, her wretched existence as a widow without
resources and with a child to support. She had only this one, her little
Louise, and the child had been killed--killed in this wood. Then she
felt anxious to see her again, and, dragging herself on her knees toward
the corpse, she raised up one corner of the garment that covered her;
then she let it fall again and began wailing once more. The crowd
remained silent, eagerly watching all the mother's gestures.

But suddenly there was a great commotion at the cry of "The gendarmes!
the gendarmes!"

Two gendarmes appeared in the distance, advancing at a rapid trot,
escorting their captain and a little gentleman with red whiskers, who was
bobbing up and down like a monkey on a big white mare.

The watchman had just found Monsieur Putoin, the magistrate, at the
moment when he was mounting his horse to take his daily ride, for he
posed as a good horseman, to the great amusement of the officers.

He dismounted, along with the captain, and pressed the hands of the mayor
and the doctor, casting a ferret-like glance on the linen coat beneath
which lay the corpse.

When he was made acquainted with all the facts, he first gave orders to
disperse the crowd, whom the gendarmes drove out of the wood, but who
soon reappeared in the meadow and formed a hedge, a big hedge of excited
and moving heads, on the other side of the stream.

The doctor, in his turn, gave explanations, w