"You?"

"Exactly."

"You, able to follow up a trail?"

"Why not?"

"Ah, well, since you are so confident and know so much more about it than I do, that's another thing; go ahead. I'll follow."

It was easy to see that the old huntsman was vexed at my venturing to encroach upon his particular field of operations. Therefore, laughing inwardly, I waited for no second invitation and turned to the left, sure of coming upon the traces of the old woman, who, after having left the Count in the subterranean pa.s.sage, must have recrossed the plain to gain the mountain.

Sperver followed on behind me whistling with a.s.sumed indifference, and I could hear him muttering:

"The idea of looking for the she-wolf's tracks in the middle of the plain. Any one should know that she would follow along the edge of the forest, as she always does; but it seems she walks about now with her hands in her pockets, like a well-to-do citizen of Tubingen."

I turned a deaf ear to all this, and kept on my way. Suddenly he gave an exclamation of surprise, and looking at me sharply:

"Gaston," he said, "you know more than you are willing to admit."

"How do you mean, Gideon?"

"The track that it would have taken me a week to find, you have got at once. There is something behind this."

"Where do you see it, then?"

"Come, don't pretend to be looking at your feet," and pointing to a scarcely perceptible white streak at some distance ahead of us, he said:

"There it is."

He started off at a gallop. I followed him, and a moment later we leaped from our saddles. It was indeed the Black Plague's track.

"I should like to know," said Sperver, folding his arms, "how the devil that trace came to be here!"

"Don't let that trouble you."

"You're right, Gaston. Don't mind what I say. I talk nonsense sometimes.

The princ.i.p.al thing now is to find out where this track leads."

The huntsman knelt on the snow. I was all ears, he all attention.

"It is a fresh track," he said at the first glance; "last night's. As I thought, Gaston, during the Count's last attack the hag was prowling about the Castle."

Then examining it more carefully:

"She pa.s.sed here at about four o'clock this morning."

"How do you know that?"

"The track is fresh, but there is sleet around it. Last night at twelve o'clock I went out to lock the doors, and sleet was falling then; there is none on this footprint, and therefore it must have been made since then."

"That is true, Sperver; but it may have been made later, at nine or ten o'clock for instance."

"No; look! It is covered with frost. There is no mist to freeze except at daybreak; the old woman pa.s.sed here after the sleet and before the frost; that is to say, between three and four this morning."

I was astonished at the accuracy of Sperver's reasoning. He got up, slapping his hands together to shake off the snow, and looking at me thoughtfully, he added, as if speaking to himself:

"Let us call it, at the latest, five o'clock! It is now twelve, isn't it?"

"Quarter to twelve."

"Very good; the hag has seven hours' start of us. We must follow her step by step wherever she may lead us. On horseback we can come up with her in from one hour to two, and if she is still moving, by seven or eight this evening she ought to be in our clutches. Come on, Gaston; there is no time to lose!"

We started on again, following the traces which led us straight towards the mountain. As we galloped along, Sperver called out:

"If good luck would have it that this cursed Plague had gone into a hole in the rocks somewhere to lie down for an hour or two, we might catch her before nightfall."

"Let's hope so, Gideon."

"Don't fool yourself that way. The old she-wolf is always moving; she never grows tired; she roams through all the hollow roads of the Black Forest. We mustn't indulge vain hopes. If she should happen to have stopped somewhere along the road, so much the better for us, and if she is still going, we have no reason to be discouraged. Come! hurry along!"

It was a strange occupation; that of a man engaged in hunting down one of his own kind; for, after all, this unfortunate woman was a fellow creature, endowed like us with an immortal soul, and feeling, thinking, and reflecting like ourselves. It is true that perverted instincts had brought her near the level of the wolf, and that some great mystery overhung her destiny. Her prowling life had doubtless obliterated her moral being, and even effaced her human character; but granted all this, it is, nevertheless, an incontrovertible truth that nothing in G.o.d's universe gave us the right to exercise over her the despotism of man over the brute creation.

Notwithstanding, a savage ardor hurried us on in pursuit; for my part, my blood boiled, and I was determined to stop at nothing which would enable me to get this strange being into my power. The wide waste of snow flew past us, and the fragments of crust, thrown up by our horses'

hoofs, whizzed past our ears.

Sperver, sometimes with his head thrown back, and his long mustache blowing in the wind, and always with his gray eye on the trail, reminded me of the famous hors.e.m.e.n of the steppes, whom I had seen pa.s.sing through Germany in my childhood; his tall, sinewy horse, with full mane and body tapering like a greyhound's, completed the illusion. Lieverle, in his enthusiasm, bounded sometimes as high as our horses' backs, and I could not help trembling at the thought that, should he come upon the Black Plague, he might tear her to pieces before we could make a movement to prevent him.

The old woman led us a terrible chase; on every hill she had doubled, and at every hillock we found a false scent.

"It is easy enough along here," said Sperver, "for you can see a long distance ahead, but when we get into the woods, it will be another matter; we shall have to keep our eyes open there. Do you see how the cursed beast has confused her tracks? There she has amused herself sweeping the trail, and from that rising ground that is exposed to the wind she has slipped down to the stream and crept through the cresses to reach the thicket yonder. If it weren't for these two foot-prints, she would have tricked us completely."

We had just reached the border of a fir forest. In these forests, the snow never penetrates between the branches of a tree. It was a difficult way. Sperver dismounted to watch the tracks closer, and placed me on the left, that my shadow might not come between him and the ground. There were large open spots covered with dead leaves and pine-needles, which take no imprint. Thus it was only in the unsheltered places, where the snow lay on the ground, that Sperver could recover the trail.

It took us an hour to get through this patch of woods. The old poacher gnawed his mustache with vexation, and his long nose almost touched his chin. When I tried to speak, he interrupted me shortly, crying:

"Don't talk; it bothers me!"

At last we descended into a valley to the left, and Gideon, pointing to the she-wolf's steps, running parallel with the edge of the undergrowth, remarked:

"This is no false sortie; we can follow it confidently.

"How do you know?"

"Because the Black Plague has a habit, whenever she doubles on her tracks, of going three steps to one side, then, retracing them, taking four, five or six in the other direction, and finally jumping into a clear s.p.a.ce. But when she thinks she has covered the trail, she strikes out without troubling herself about false scents. Look! what did I tell you? She is burrowing now into the brushwood like a wild boar; it will be easy enough to follow her here. So much for that; and now, let's keep the tracks between us and light a pipe!"

We halted, and the good fellow, whose face was beginning to brighten up, looked at me with enthusiasm, crying:

"Gaston, this promises to be one of the finest days in my life. If we take the old creature, I will fasten her to the saddle behind me like a bundle of old rags. Only one thing troubles me."