Jorancé noticed that the German post had been put up again, but in a makeshift fashion, with the aid of a number of large stones which kept it in position.
"A gust of wind and down it comes again," he said, shaking it.
"I say, mind what you're about!" said Morestal, with a chuckle. "Don't you see yourself toppling it over and having the police down upon you?... You'd better make a strategic movement to the rear, my friend!..."
But he had not finished speaking when another cry reached his ears.
"Ah, this time," said Morestal, "you'll admit...."
"Yes ... yes ..." Jorancé agreed. "An owl gives a duller, slower hoot.... It really is like a signal, a hundred yards or so ahead of us.... Smugglers, of course, French or German."
"Suppose we turned back?" said Morestal. "Aren't you afraid of being mixed up in an affair?..."
"Why? It's the custom-house people's business; it doesn't concern you and me. They can settle it among themselves...."
They listened for a moment and then went on, thoughtfully, with watchful ears.
After the Butte-aux-Loups, the ridge becomes flatter, the forest spreads out and the road, now freer, winds among the trees, runs from one slope to the other, avoids the big roots, passes round the inequalities of the ground and, at times, disappears from sight under a bed of dead leaves.