The sportsmen took up their positions at some distance from each other, Hautot Senior posting himself at the right, Hautot Junior at the left, and the two guests in the middle. The keeper and those who carried the game-bags followed. It was the anxious moment when the first shot is awaited, when the heart beats a little, while the nervous finger keeps feeling at the trigger every second. Suddenly the shot went off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped, and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at great speed to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and disappeared in his turn into the thicket in quest of his game. Almost at the same instant, a second shot was heard. “Ha! ha! the rascal!” exclaimed M. Bermont, “he will unearth a hare down there.” They all waited, with their eyes riveted on the heap of branches through which their gaze failed to penetrate. The notary, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, shouted: “Have you got them?” Hautot Senior made no response. Then César, turning toward the keeper, said to him: “Just go and assist him, Joseph. We must keep walking in a straight line. We'll wait.” And Joseph, an old stump of a man, lean and knotty, all of whose joints formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine, searching at every opening through which a passage could be effected with the cautiousness of a fox. Then, suddenly, he cried: “Oh! come! come! an unfortunate thing has occurred.” They all hurried forward, plunging through the briers. The elder Hautot, who had fallen on his side, in a fainting condition, kept both his hands over his stomach, from which flowed down upon the grass through the linen vest torn by the lead, long streamlets of blood. As he was laying down his gun, in order to seize the partridge within reach of him, he had let the firearm fall, and the second discharge, going off with the shock, had torn open his entrails. They drew him out of the trench; they removed his clothes and they saw a frightful wound, through which the intestines came out. Then, after having bandaged him the best way they could, they brought him back to his own house, and awaited the doctor, who had been sent for, as well as a priest. When the doctor arrived, he gravely shook his head, and, turning toward young Hautot, who was sobbing on a chair: “My poor boy,” said he, “this does not look well.” But, when the dressing was finished, the wounded man moved his fingers, opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around him troubled, haggard glances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to understand, and he murmured: “Ah! good God! this has done for me!” The doctor held his hand. “Why no, why no, some days of rest merely--it will be nothing.” Hautot returned: