As I spoke, having stopped a moment to answer him, we heard a dog bark in the distance, and José, seizing the rope by which I was leading the horse, cried out:-- "Quick, Tiennet! here come the muleteer's dogs! If you don't want to be torn in pieces, let go the horse; see, he hears them and you can't do anything with him now." Sure enough, the _clairin_ pricked his ears to listen; then laying them back, which is a great sign of ill-temper, he began to neigh and rear and kick, which brought all the mules capering round us, so that we had scarcely time to get out of the way before the whole of them rushed by at full speed in the direction of the dogs. I was not satisfied to yield, however, and as the dogs, having called in their wild troop, showed signs of making straight for us, I took aim with my gun as if to shoot the first of the two that came at me. But Joseph went up to the dog and made him recognize him. "Ah! Satan," he said to him, "the fault is yours. Why did you chase the hares into the wheat instead of watching your beasts? When your master wakes up you will be whipped if you are not at your post with Louveteau and the _clairin_." Satan, understanding that he was being reproved for his behavior, obeyed Joseph, who called him towards a large tract of waste land where the mules could feed without doing any damage, and where Joseph, as he told me, intended to watch them until their master returned. "Nevertheless, José," I said to him, "matters won't blow over as quietly as you think for; and if you will not tell me where the owner of these mules hides himself, I shall stay here and wait for him, and say what I think to his face, and demand reparation for the harm done." "You don't know muleteers if you think it easy to get the better of them," replied Joseph. "I believe it is the first time any of them have ever passed this way. It is not their usual road; they commonly come down from the Bourbonnais forests through those of Meillant and L'Éspinasse into the Cheurre woods. I happened accidentally to meet them in the forest of Saint-Chartier, where they were halting on their way to Saint-Août; among them was the man who is here now, whose name is Huriel, and who is on his way to the iron works of Ardentes for coal and ore. He has been kind enough to come two hours out of his way to oblige me. And it may be that, having left his companions and the heath country through which the roads frequented by men of his business run, where his mules can pasture without injuring any one, he fancied he was just as free here in our wheat-lands; and though he is altogether wrong, it would be best not to tell him so."