We were returning at a canter along the highway to Bourgneuf, in the hope that on reaching that place we might find that some of our searchers had returned with happy tidings and better success than ourselves; but we had scarcely proceeded two miles when we met Urbain the gardener and Bertrand the porter, each armed with a musket. They were accompanied by an old peasant, whose head was bound about with a cloth to conceal a wound, which seemed to have bled profusely. They had been scouting in the woodlands which bordered the highway, and had there met this peasant, who was a woodcutter, and who informed them that he had seen a man dragging a woman towards the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier, and that when attempting to interfere when she claimed his succour and protection, her captor struck him down with the butt of a heavy pistol. This rencontre occurred about three miles from the place where we were then speaking. "_Pardieu!_ this is valuable intelligence," exclaimed Boisguiller; "but how shall we track them through these dense thickets?" "Monsieur, you cannot do it on horseback," replied the peasant; "but as my hut is close by, you may leave your horses there, and then, as I should like to repay that cowardly rascal for the tap he gave me on the head, I shall give you sure means of tracking him, for I have in keeping a Spanish bloodhound belonging to Monseigneur the Count of Fougères, and it is completely at your service." "I thank you for this great aid, _mon ami_," said my companion; "the count knows me well--I am the Chevalier de Boisguiller, son of the Governor of St. Malo." On hearing this the peasant made a succession of low bows, scraping the turf with his sabots at each. The reader may imagine the haste and satisfaction with which we availed ourselves of the offer of the old woodman, and as we proceeded to his humble hut, which was situated close to a bend of the Nanson, I questioned him closely and anxiously about the appearance of the persons he had seen. The tall, powerful man in a common blouse and fur cap, with a girdle and _couteau de chasse_, was as certainly Theophile Hautois as the poor pale girl with torn dress and dishevelled hair, whose hands he had tied with a cord, and whose mouth he had gagged with a handkerchief, was certainly our Jacqueline. His description made me tremble with anguish and rage, and Boisguiller to gnaw the ends of his moustaches. We quitted our saddles, stuck our pistols in our girdles, and had the bloodhound brought forth. "Messieurs," said the woodman, as he led forward the dog by a strong steel chain, "there is not in France, and certainly not in Bretagne or Normandy, a _limier_ with a finer nose than this; and set him but once upon the track of those we seek--let the distance between us be ever so great, and let it be through the thickest woods and by the most covert paths--ay, _pardieu_, by the Blackwater of St. Aubin du Cormier, this dog will trace them."