Here they are stopped now at a cross-road where no human habitation is visible. Around them are gorges full of shade wherein grand oaks grow thickly, and above, everywhere, a piling up of mountains, of a reddish color burned by the sun. There is nowhere an indication of the new times; there is an absolute silence, something like the peace of the primitive epochs. Lifting their heads toward the brown peaks, they perceive at a long distance persons walking on invisible paths, pushing before them donkeys of smugglers: as small as insects at such a distance, are these silent passers-by on the flank of the gigantic mountain; Basques of other times, almost confused, as one looks at them from this place, with this reddish earth from which they came--and where they are to return, after having lived like their ancestors without a suspicion of the things of our times, of the events of other places-- They take off their caps, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, to wipe their foreheads; it is so warm in these gorges and they have run so much, jumped so much, that their entire bodies are in a perspiration. They are enjoying themselves, but they would like to come, nevertheless, near the two little, blonde girls who are waiting for them. But of whom shall they ask their way now, since there is no one? “Ave Maria,” cries at them from the thickness of the branches an old, rough voice. And the salutation is prolonged by a string of words spoken in a rapid decrescendo, quick; quick; a Basque prayer rattled breathlessly, begun very loudly, then dying at the finish. And an old beggar comes out of the fern, all earthy, all hairy, all gray, bent on his stick like a man of the woods. “Yes,” says Arrochkoa, putting his hand in his pocket, “but you must take us to the Olhagarray house.” “The Olhagarray house,” replies the old man. “I have come from it, my children, and you are near it.” In truth, how had they failed to see, at a hundred steps further, that black gable among branches of chestnut trees? At a point where sluices rustle, it is bathed by a torrent, that Olhagarray house, antique and large, among antique chestnut trees. Around, the red soil is denuded and furrowed by the waters of the mountain; enormous roots are interlaced in it like monstrous gray serpents; and the entire place, overhung on all sides by the Pyrenean masses, is rude and tragic. But two young girls are there, seated in the shade; with blonde hair and elegant little pink waists; astonishing little fairies, very modern in the midst of the ferocious and old scenes.--They rise, with cries of joy, to meet the visitors. It would have been better, evidently, to enter the house and salute the old people. But the boys say to themselves that they have not been seen coming, and they prefer to sit near their sweethearts, by the side of the brook, on the gigantic roots. And, as if by chance, the two couples manage not to bother one another, to remain hidden from one another by rocks, by branches.