"Where the devil are we?" said the stout huntsman, mopping his
forehead and leaning against the trunk of a tree nearly opposite to
his companion, for he felt unequal to the effort of leaping the ditch
between them.

"That's for me to ask you," said the other, laughing, as he lay among
the tall brown brake which crowned the bank. Then, throwing the end of
his cigar into the ditch, he cried out vehemently: "I swear by Saint
Hubert that never again will I trust myself in unknown territory with
a statesman, though he be, like you, my dear d'Albon, a college mate."

"But, Philippe, have you forgotten your French? Or have you left your
wits in Siberia?" replied the stout man, casting a sorrowfully comic
look at a sign-post about a hundred feet away.

"True, true," cried Philippe, seizing his gun and springing with a
bound into the field and thence to the post. "This way, d'Albon, this
way," he called back to his friend, pointing to a broad paved path and
reading aloud the sign: "'From Baillet to Ile-Adam.' We shall
certainly find the path to Cassan, which must branch from this one
between here and Ile-Adam."

"You are right, colonel," said Monsieur d'Albon, replacing upon his
head the cap with which he had been fanning himself.

"Forward then, my respectable privy councillor," replied Colonel
Philippe, whistling to the dogs, who seemed more willing to obey him
than the public functionary to whom they belonged.