"My boys," replied Materne, formally, "are true hunters: they know how to wait, and take advantage of the right moment. They will not fire unless I call."
"Good luck to you!" shouted Hullin after them, as they ascended the snowy sides of the mountain, to avoid the felled trees. After a quarter of an hour's walking, they turned round by the fir forest, and were out of sight.
Then Hullin quietly returned to the farm, talking as he went with Nickel Bentz.
Doctor Lorquin walked behind, closely followed by Pluto, and all the others went back to their places around the camp-fires.
CHAPTER XIII.
Materne and his two sons walked on for a long time in silence; the weather had set in fine; the pale wintry sun shone on the dazzlingly white snow without melting it. The ground still remained firm and hard. At a distance, in the valley, were outlined, with surprising clearness, the branches of the fir trees, the reddish peaks of the rocks, the roofs of the cottages, with the icicles hanging from the eaves, their little glittering window-panes, and their pointed gables.
People were walking in the street of Grandfontaine; a group of young girls were standing round the fountain, and some old men in cotton night-caps were smoking their pipes at the doors of their cottages. All this miniature world beneath the blue vault of heaven went and came and lived without a breath or a sigh reaching the ears of the foresters.