November — A Wild Sow. 21 



About three o'clock in the morning I heard, or 

 fancied that I heard, a movement in the brushwood, 

 quite clearly distinguishable from the music of the 

 rivulet. To this succeeded a crash of breaking branches, 

 and a wild boar, or rather sow, dashed through the water 

 a few yards above our resting-place. She was followed 

 by a well-grown litter, which I took to be rather numerous 

 from the noise they made. On the impulse of the mo- 

 ment I discharged both barrels amongst them, and killed 

 a fine little pig, the rest of the family being immediately 

 lost in the depths of the forest. The discharge aroused 

 Alexis, who was delighted with this exploit, and finished 

 the poor little brute with a hunting-knife of formidable 

 dimensions, which he always carries about him. Here, at 

 any rate, were the materials for a carnivorous breakfast. 

 But this was not the only consequence of the incident. 

 We were startled soon afterwards by the report of a gun 

 in the distance, after too long an interval to be an echo. 

 The inference was obvious ; we were in communication 

 with some gun-carrying personage in the forest, either 

 poacher or forester, or possibly a party in search of us 

 from the Val Ste. Veronique. 



Instead of attempting to set out in the direction from 

 which the sound proceeded, which would have been use- 

 less in the dark entanglement of the forest, I determined 

 to remain quietly where we were, and to increase our 

 bonfire as much as possible, so that the reverberation 

 from it on the clouds above might be strong enough to 

 guide any seeker to our whereabouts. This may be 

 done when the clouds are low, and it is the only advan- 



