Flights of ravens and crows incessantly wheel round and round in the
gulfs and natural wells which they transform into dark dovecots, while
the brown bear, followed by her shaggy family, who sport and tumble
around her in the snow, slowly descends from their retreat invaded by the
frost. But these are neither the most savage nor the most cruel
inhabitants that winter brings into these mountains; the daring smuggler
raises for himself a dwelling of wood on the very boundary of nature and
of politics. There unknown treaties, secret exchanges, are made between
the two Navarres, amid fogs and winds.

It was in this narrow path on the frontiers of France that, about two
months after the scenes we have witnessed in Paris, two travellers,
coming from Spain, stopped at midnight, fatigued and dismayed. They
heard musket-shots in the mountain.

"The scoundrels! how they have pursued us!" said one of them. "I can
go no farther; but for you I should have been taken."

"And you will be taken still, as well as that infernal paper, if you lose
your time in words; there is another volley on the rock of Saint Pierre-
de-L'Aigle. Up there, they suppose we have gone in the direction of the
Limacon; but, below, they will see the contrary. Descend; it is
doubtless a patrol hunting smugglers. Descend."

"But how? I can not see."

"Never mind, descend. Take my arm."

"Hold me; my boots slip," said the first traveller, stamping on the edge
of the rock to make sure of the solidity of the ground before trusting