"Without doubt. Do not forget Materne of Hengst and his two boys, Labarbe of Dagsburg, Jerôme of Saint-Quirin. Tell them that there will be powder and ball; that we are in it heart and soul, Catherine Lefévre, I, Marc Divès, and all the honest people of the country." "Make your mind easy, Marc; I know my men." "Then good-bye for the present." They wrung each other's hands and parted. The smuggler took the path to the right, towards the Donon, Hullin that to the left, towards the Sarre. They were both proceeding on their way at a good pace when Hullin called to his comrade: "Halloo! Marc, as you pass Catherine Lefévre's, tell her that all goes well, and that I am gone to the villages in the mountain." The other answered by a sign of his head that he understood, and then both continued their way. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 6: The Birch Trees.] [Footnote 7: Workers in a sawpit.] CHAPTER VI. An extraordinary agitation prevailed at this time over all the line of the Vosges; the report of an expected invasion spread from village to village, even to the very farms and cottages of the Hengst and the Nideck. The hawkers, the carriers, the tinkers, all the floating population that roves incessantly from the mountain to the plain, and from the plain to the mountain, brought every day from Alsace and the borders of the Rhine a lot of strange news. "Every place," said these folks, "is being put in a state of defence; foraging parties are constantly engaged in provisioning them with corn and meat. The roads from Metz, from Nancy, from Huningen, and from Strasbourg, are filled with convoys. In every direction you meet waggons full of ammunition, cavalry, infantry, artillery, all hurrying to their posts. Marshal Victor, with his twelve thousand men, is already engaged in keeping the road to Saverne, but the drawbridges are always raised from seven o'clock every evening till eight the next morning." Every one was of opinion that all this boded no good. Nevertheless, if many felt serious alarm at the near prospect of war, if old women lifted their hands to heaven and prayed to all the saints in the calendar, the greater number thought only of the means of defence. Under such circumstances, Jean-Claude Hullin, you may be sure, was well received everywhere. That very day, about five o'clock in the evening, he reached the summit of the Hengst, and stopped at the dwelling of the patriarch of the forest rangers, old Materne. It was there that he passed the night; for, in winter time, the days are short and the roads bad. Materne promised to undertake the charge of the defile of the Zorn with his two sons, Kasper and Frantz, and to reply to the first signal that should be made to him from the Falkenstein.