d by another growl from the older dog.

Ralph looked uneasily round.

"He smells another boar, but one is enough for our dinner," said
Etienne, and they turned again to their meal.

Suddenly one of their number, a woodman named Gilbert, leapt up
with a wild cry, and then fell down in their midst dead.

An arrow had pierced his heart.

The Normans rose aghast at this sudden intrusion of death, and
gazed wildly around.

But all was yet silent, no war cry followed this deadly act of
hostility--the woods seemed asleep.

"To cover," cried Ralph the forester, assuming instinctively the
command; "let your own arrows be ready for these lurking cowards."

And the Normans, sheltering themselves behind the trunks of the
trees, stood, their arrows fitted to the string, to await the onset
they momentarily expected.

But it did not take place, and after a trying pause of some
minutes, Etienne, who had quite recovered his audacity, and who was
a little nettled at being, as it were, superseded in the command
for the moment, shouted:

"Keep your eyes open and search the cover, the miscreants have
probably fled, but we may put the dogs on the track."

The obedient vassals obeyed, not without some hesitation, for they
felt that the moment of exposure might be that of death. Still they
were forced to undergo the risk, and they searched the immediate
neighbourhood, omitting no precautions that experience in woodland
warfare suggested.

But all their search was in vain.

"Shall we blow the horn and summon further assistance?" said Ralph.

"No, we shall but recall the other parties from their duties," said
Etienne, not wisely, for the cause was sufficient--they were at
least in the neighbourhood of the foe whom all panted to discover;
but he was angry with the old forester, and would receive no
suggestion.

The dogs, although they ran hither and thither, their noses to the
ground, seemed as much in fault as the men, and after an hour had
passed in this vain attempt to track the invisible foe, Etienne
gave orders to abandon the spot and resume their appointed task,
for they had yet to explore a square mile or two of forest--those
nearest the morass.

But here Ralph ventured a remonstrance; the day was far spent, they
had but an hour or two of daylight, and there were heavy clouds in
the northeast, which seemed to indicate a snowstorm; he thought
"they had better return towards home as fast as they could, and
finish their