So saying, Courtin finally drew aside, and Michel, setting spurs to his horse, rode past him.
"Gallop! gallop!" cried Petit-Pierre. "That is the man who caused poor Bonneville's death. Let us get on as fast as we can; that man has the evil-eye."
The young baron stuck both spurs into his horse; but the animal had hardly gone a dozen paces before the saddle turned, and both riders came heavily to the ground. Petit-Pierre was up first.
"Are you hurt?" she asked Michel, who was getting up more slowly.
"No," he replied; "but I am wondering how--"
"How we came to fall? That's not the question. We did fall, and there's the fact. Girth your horse again, and as fast as possible."
"Aïe!" cried Michel, who had already thrown the saddle over his horse's back; "both girths are broken at precisely the same height."
"Say they are cut," said Petit-Pierre. "It is a trick of your infernal Courtin; and it is a warning of worse--Wait, look over there."
Michel, whose arm Petit-Pierre had seized, looked in the direction to which she pointed, and there, about a mile distant in the valley, he saw three or four camp-fires shining in the darkness.
"It is a bivouac," said Petit-Pierre. "If that scoundrel suspects the truth--and no doubt he does--he will make for the camp and set those red-breeches on our traces."