Quintana said softly: "Me, I have enough already of this damn woods. Why shall we starve here when there lies our path?" He pointed north; his arm remained outstretched for a while.
"Clinch, he is there," growled Picquet.
"Also our path, l'ami Henri. … And, behind us, they hunt us now with dogs."
Picquet bared his big white teeth in fierce surprise. "Dogs?" he repeated with a sort of snarl.
"That is how they now hunt us, my frien' — like they hunt the hare in the Cote d'Or. … Me, I shall now reconnoitre — that way!" And he looked where he was pointing, into the north — with smouldering eyes. Then he turned calmly to Picquet: "An' you, l'ami?"
"At orders, mon capitaine."
"C'est bien. Venez."
They walked leisurely forward with rifles shouldered, following the hard ridge out across a vast and flooded land where the bark of trees glimmered with wet mosses.
After a quarter of a mile the ridge broadened and split into two, one hog-back branching northeast! They, however, continued north.
About twenty minutes later Picquet, creeping along on Quintana's left, and some sixty yards distant, discovered something moving in the woods beyond, and fired at it. Instantly two unseen rifles spoke from the woods ahead. Picquet was jerked clear around, lost his balance and nearly fell. Blood was spurting from his right arm, between elbow and shoulder.