They proceeded fully five miles from home before their real task began.  Perhaps the reader will wonder how they could know their own destined region in so pathless a wilderness, but it was part of the training they had received as hunters to find their way in the lonely woods; and there were signs innumerable which told them where they were, and in what direction they were going.  Etienne alone, could guide his men while day lasted, as well as a pilot could steer a ship in a well-known archipelago, and in Ralph he had a tower of strength.

Every landmark was known—­the course of every stream; each tree, by the direction in which it threw its boughs and by the mosses at the foot of its trunk, told the points of the compass.

Yet there were probably, in so large an extent of country, many wild glens and deep fastnesses hitherto untraversed, and these had to be discovered and explored.

Straight through the territory assigned to them marched our little band; keen-nosed dogs went first, secured by leashes, that the game they continually aroused might not lead them astray; men followed who, like American Indians, looked for “trails” in every soft surface of ground, and along the banks of each stream of sweet water, where men might come to drink, but by noon they had traversed the whole extent of their territory in a straight line, and discovered nothing.  Once, indeed, they thought they were on the scent of man; but they had crossed the trail of a wild boar and could not restrain themselves from following it up, the scent was so fresh, and herein they wasted much time, but succeeded in killing their boar; and Etienne at once proposed that, since it was midday, they should light a fire and dine upon its flesh.

The forester, old Ralph, objected that the smoke would reveal their presence, and frustrate the object of their expedition; but the young noble replied so rudely that the old man withdrew his objection.

The fire was kindled, the smoke arose high above the tree tops in the clear atmosphere, and soon the poor boar was dissected, and the choicest parts of his flesh held on spits.  ’Twas somewhat fresh, but none the worse, thought the roasters, for that.

The glade in which they were seated, through which the little brook foamed and tumbled, was surrounded by magnificent old oaks, some with hollow trunks, others with branches gnarled and twisted in a thousand fantastic shapes, some yet retained a portion of their leaves—­brown and sere, one or two were enveloped with ivy, and here and there the mistletoe could be seen, thick and verdant.  It was a spot the Druids must have delighted to haunt in the times gone by, and one a painter might like to hap upon now in his woodland strolls.

Some fallen logs were close by the stream, and upon these one party placed the viands, or seated their own comely forms, while others piled fresh sticks upon the fire, and held out the fizzing meat on spits—­full of enjoyment of the hour, and utterly careless of danger.