The two first bullets were seen to cross one another, and ran along the ground, sending up spurts of snow; the wolf had escaped them both, but he had no doubt been struck down by the others; that the two keepers who had just fired should miss their aim, was an un-heard of thing. I had seen Moynat kill seventeen snipe one after the other; I had seen Mildet cut a squirrel in two as he was jumping from tree to tree.
The keepers went into the forest after the wolf; we looked anxiously towards the spot where they had disappeared. We saw them reappear, dejected, and shaking their heads.
“Well?” cried Mocquet interrogatively.
“Bah!” answered Mildet, with an impatient movement of his arm, “he’s at Taille-Fontaine by this time.”
“At Taille-Fontaine!” exclaimed Mocquet, completely taken aback. “What! the fools have gone and missed him, then!”
“Well, what of that? you missed him yourself, did you not?”
Mocquet shook his head.
“Well, well, there’s some devilry about this,” he said. “That I should miss him was surprising, but it was perhaps possible; but that Moynat should have shot twice and missed him is not possible, no, I say, no.”
“Nevertheless, so it is, my good Mocquet.”
“Besides, you, you hit him,” he said to me.
“I!... are you sure?”
“We others may well be ashamed to say it. But as sure as my name is Mocquet, you hit the wolf.”
“Well, it’s easy to find out if I did hit him, there would be blood on the snow.—Come, Mocquet, let us run and see.” And suiting the action to the word, I set off running.
“Stop, stop, do not run, whatever you do,” cried Mocquet, clenching his teeth and stamping. “We must go quietly, until we know better what we have to deal with.”
“Well, we will go quietly, then; but at any rate, let us go!”
Mocquet then began to follow the wolf’s track, step by step.
“There’s not much fear of losing it,” I said.
“It’s plain enough.”
“Yes, but that’s not what I am looking for.”
“What are you looking for, then?”
“You will know in a minute or two.”
The other huntsmen had now joined us, and as they came along after us, the keeper related to them what had taken place. Meanwhile, Mocquet and I continued to follow the wolf’s footprints, which were deeply indented in the snow. At last we came to the spot where he had received my fire.
“There, Mocquet,” I said to him, “you see I did miss him after all!”
“How do you know that you missed him?”
“Because there are no blood marks.”
“Look for the mark of your bullet, then, in the snow.”
I looked to see which way my bullet would have sped if it had not hit the wolf, and then went in that direction; but I tracked for more than a quarter of a mile to no purpose, so I thought I might as well go back to Mocquet. He beckoned to the keepers to approach, and then turning to me, said:—
“Well, and the bullet?”
“I cannot find it.”
“I have been luckier than you, then, for I have found it.”
“What, you found it?”
“Right about and come behind me.”
I did as I was told, and the huntsmen having come up, Mocquet pointed out a line to them beyond which they were not to pass. The keepers Mildet and Moynat now joined us. “Well?” said Mocquet to them in their turn.
“Missed,” they both answered at once.
“I saw you had missed him in the open, but when he had reached covert ...?”
“Missed him there too.”
“Are you sure?”
“Both the bullets have been found, each of them in the trunk of a tree.”
“It is almost past belief,” said Vatrin.
“Yes,” rejoined Mocquet, “it is almost past belief, but I have something to show you which is even more difficult to believe.”
“Show it us, then.”
“Look there, what do you see on the snow?”
“The track of a wolf; what of that?”
“And close to the mark of the right foot—there—what do you see?”
“A little hole.”
“Well, do you understand?”
The keepers looked at each other in astonishment.
“Do you understand now?” repeated Mocquet.
“The thing’s impossible!” exclaimed the keepers.
“Nevertheless it is so, and I will prove it to you.”
And so saying, Mocquet plunged his hand into the snow, felt about a moment or two, and then, with a cry of triumph, pulled out a flattened bullet.
“Why, that’s my bullet,” I said.
“You recognise it, then?”
“Of course I do, you marked it for me.”
“And what mark did I put on it?”
“A cross.”
“You see, sirs,” said Mocquet.
“Yes, but explain how this happened.”
“This is it; he could turn aside the ordinary bullets, but he had no power over the youngster’s, which was marked with a cross; it hit him in the shoulder, I saw him make a movement as if to try and bite himself.”
“But,” I broke in, astonished at the silence and amazement which had fallen on the keepers, “if my bullet hit him in the shoulder, why did it not kill him?”
“Because it was made neither of gold nor of silver, my dear boy; and because no bullets but those that are made of gold or silver can pierce the skin of the devil, or kill those who have made a compact with him.”
“But, Mocquet,” said the keepers, shuddering, “do you really think ...?”
“Think? Yes, I do! I could swear that we have had to do this morning with Thibault, the sabot-maker’s wolf.”
The huntsman and keepers looked at one another; two or three of them made the sign of the cross; and they all appeared to share Mocquet’s opinion, and to know quite well what he meant by Thibault’s wolf. I, alone, knew nothing about it, and therefore asked impatiently, “What is this wolf, and who is this Thibault, the sabot-maker?”
Mocquet hesitated before replying, then, “Ah! to be sure!” he exclaimed, “the General told me that I might let you know about it when you were fifteen. You are that age now, are you not?”
“I am sixteen,” I replied with some pride.
“Well, then, my dear Monsieur Alexandre, Thibault, the sabot-maker’s wolf, is the devil. You were asking me last night for a tale, were you not?”
“Yes.”
“Come back home with me this morning, then, and I will tell you a tale, and a fine one too.”
The keepers and huntsmen shook hands with one another