"Good day, Daniel. Good day, Colon. Good day, good day."
"Ah! ha! it's growing warm, Hullin."
"Yes, yes; we shall hear the chestnuts burst in the fire this winter. Good day, old Jerôme; we are engaged in a great enterprise now."
"True, Jean-Claude. We must hope to accomplish it, with the blessing of God."
Catherine, as soon as she reached the sawpit, then told Labarbe to deposit on the ground a little keg of brandy which she had brought from the farm, and to borrow a jug from the sawyer in the shed.
A little while after, Hullin, coming up to the fire, met Materne and his two sons.
"You are late," said the old huntsman to him.
"Well, yes; what would you have? First, we had to descend from the Falkenstein, take our guns, and get the women-kind in marching order. However, here we are at last, so don't let us lose any more time. Give us a blast of your horn, Lagarmitte, to call all the people together. The first thing of all is to lay our plans, to appoint our leaders."
In an instant, Lagarmitte was blowing away at his long horn, with his cheeks inflated to his very ears, and the bands of men, who were still dispersed along the footpaths, and on the outskirts of the woods, hastened their steps to arrive in time. In a short time all the brave fellows were assembled in front of the sawpit.
Hullin, now grave and stern, mounted a heap of trunks of trees, and casting a look of serious meaning on the crowd that surrounded him, said, in the midst of the deepest silence:—"The enemy crossed the Rhine the evening before last; he is now marching over the mountains to enter Lorraine; Strasbourg and Huningen are in a state of blockade. We must expect to see the Germans and the Russians in three or four days."