Sometimes a drover, on foot and alone, pursued by a cow with calf, and apparently in imminent danger from the furious beast, will suddenly turn about, and--with arm outstretched, as if he held his spear--point his three fingers at the animal, separated so as to represent the three points of the trident. In face of the motionless man, the cow, seized with terror, recoils, pawing up the earth, with lowered head and threatening horns; and, as soon as she thinks she is well out of the man's reach, she turns and flies. A common performance of the drover, when he is in good spirits, is this: pursuing the bull, he passes beyond him some twenty or thirty yards, then stops short and leaps down from his horse; the bull, taken by surprise, rushes at the man, who has one knee on the ground. The bull comes rushing on with lowered horns. Three sharp hand-claps: the bull has stopped! His hot breath strikes the face of his subduer, who has already seized him with both hands by the horns. The man, springing instantly to his feet, struggles to throw the beast over to the right. The bull, resisting, throws himself in the opposite direction. The two forces neutralize each other for an instant, almost equal, the result uncertain; then the man suddenly yields, and the beast, unexpectedly impelled in the direction of his own efforts, falls upon his side. Skill is seconded by the creature's whole strength in its struggle for victory. This is the method adopted at the _ferrades_, or brandings, where the sport consists in branding the young animals with a red-hot iron. For a drover, to seize a colt by the nose, and mount him bareback; to roll with his steed at the bottom of a ditch and emerge firmly seated in the saddle; to subdue stallions by fatigue, and, if dismounted and wounded by a kick, to dress the wound as tranquilly as the cork-cutter dresses the scratch made by his knife,--all this is mere child's-play. A drover, caught between two horns--luckily well separated--and tossed into the air, has but one thought when he picks himself up after falling to the ground--a thought so surprising as not to be ridiculous: to rearrange his breeches and readjust his belt. A unique race it is, rough and brutal, which would be esteemed heroic, like the Corsican race, if it had great affairs in which to display its great qualities. IV THE SÉDEN Jacques Renaud, Livette's betrothed, was, as we have said, one of the most fearless drovers in Camargue. He could pursue and catch and subdue a wild horse, attack a rebellious bull and master it, as no other could; he was the king of the moor. For occasions of public rejoicing, at Nîmes or Arles, he was always sent for when they desired a really fine performance in the arena. And he had so often called forth the exclamation, in all the arenas throughout Provence: "Oh! that fellow is _the king_ of them all!" that the name had clung to him. And he himself had given to his finest stallion the name of "Prince."