After that there is nothing for it except to keep up the chase relentlessly until evening, with the whole company gradually scattering through the forest until Conon at last overtakes the chase. But the baron is now alone save for a few dogs. "The boar has finally come to bay in front of a thicket. He begins by refreshing himself in a pool; then, raising his brows, rolling his eyes, and snorting, he bares his tusks and dashes upon the dogs, and rips them open or tears them to pieces, one after another, all except three of the best greyhounds. Then Conon arrives, and first of all he sees his dogs stretched out dead. 'Oh, son of a sow,' cries he, 'it is you that have disemboweled my dogs, have separated me from my friends, and have brought me I know not where! You shall die!' He leaps from his steed. At his shout the boar, despite bushes and ditches, leaps upon him swift as an arrow. Conon lets him come straight on, and, holding the boar spear straight before him, strikes at his breast. The point pierces the heart and goes out at the shoulder blade. Mortally wounded, the boar swerves to one side, totters, and falls."[19] So the chase ends and the dogs are avenged. The baron has to blow his horn many times ere his party finds him. Luckily the boar has run back somewhat toward St. Aliquis. They are therefore able to get home in noisy triumph that night, and all the castle women are under the red torches outside the gate to "oh!" and "ah!" at the boar and to praise the prowess of their seigneur. [Illustration: THE STAG HUNT Twelfth century; from a window in the cathedral of Chartres.] Conon is fortunate in being able to return home without more adventures. His high suzerain, King Philip Augustus, while a young prince, once followed a boar until he was lost in the forest, and became justly anxious; but just as he was commending himself to God, the Virgin, and "St. Denis, the protector of the King of France," to his great relief he met "a charcoal burner, grim to behold, with a face black with charcoal, carrying a great ax on his shoulder." This honest peasant guided the prince to safety. [Sidenote: Hunting Across Peasants' Lands] One important part of the St. Aliquis population, however, regards all hunting parties with far less satisfaction. The chase often goes straight across the peasants' fields, with twenty horses beating down the newly seeded ground or even the standing crops. This is the baron's absolute privilege and any protest is treasonable. The villeins have not simply to submit to this, but if deer nibble or boars root upon their fields, they can merely try to scare the ravagers off. Their lord and his friends alone may use arrow, blade, or spear against the game. The St. Aliquis peasants bless the saints that this time the boar kept conveniently in the forest and did not sell his life dearly in a half-ripe cornfield.