Hullin had a quick eye, nothing escaped him: he took in all this at a glance, and besides, he had been used to this sort of thing for many a long year; but Lagarmitte, who had never seen anything of the kind before, was stupefied with surprise:
"There are a good many of them!" said he, shaking his head.
"Ah! bah! what does that prove?" said Hullin. "In my time, we have exterminated three armies of fifty thousand of the same race, in six months; we were not one against four. All those you see there would not have made our breakfast. And besides, you may make your mind easy, we shall not need to kill them all; they'll fly before us like hares. I've seen that before now!"
After these sage reflections, he judged it prudent to go and inspect his company again.
"Come on!" said he to the shepherd.
They both then, advancing behind the barricades, shaped their course along a path cut through the snow two days before. These snows, hardened by the frost, were now become as solid and firm as ice. The trees, as they lay in front all covered with hoar-frost, formed an impenetrable barrier, which extended for about six hundred metres. The road lay hollowed out below.
As he approached, Jean-Claude saw the mountaineers of the Dagsberg, crouching at intervals of twenty paces in a sort of round nests which they had dug out for themselves.
All these brave fellows were sitting on their knapsacks, their flask on their right, their hats, or fox-skin caps, pushed to the back of their necks, their guns between their knees. They had only to rise in order to see the road at fifty paces beneath them, at the foot of a slippery descent.
They were delighted to see Hullin.
"Eh! Master Jean-Claude, is it going to begin soon?"