And raising his hand, he pointed to the little lake, then covered with a thin and transparent coating of ice. His two boys had only to glance in that direction to witness the strangest sight. About twenty Cossacks, with rough yellow beards, their heads covered with old seal-skin caps, shaped like the funnel of a stove, their lean forms clad in long tatters, their feet in stirrups made of old cords, were sitting on their little horses with long floating manes, thin tails, the crupper spotted with yellow, white, and black, like goats. Some had for sole weapon a long lance, others a sabre, others a hatchet suspended by a cord to the saddle, and a large holster pistol attached to their belt. Several, with upturned faces, were looking delightedly and admiringly at the dark green tops of the fir trees, reaching one above the other till finally lost in the clouds. One tall, bony fellow was breaking the ice with the thick end of his lance, while his little horse drank, with outstretched neck and long mane falling beardwise down each cheek. Some among them, having alighted, were clearing away the snow, and pointing to the wood, no doubt to indicate that it was a good place for encamping. Their comrades, still on horseback, were talking together, and showing on their right the bottom of the valley, lying low like a gap as far as the Grinderwald. In short, it was a halt, and it would be impossible to describe the strange and picturesque appearance which these beings from far-off lands, with their bronzed countenances, long beards, black eyes, low foreheads, flat noses, tattered grey coats, presented on the borders of that still lake, and under those steep rocks, with their tall fir-crowned summits reaching to the skies. It seemed like a glimpse of another and a different world to them, a species of unknown, curious, and strange game, that the three red huntsmen began to gaze upon at first with a singular curiosity. But that over, at the end of five minutes, Kasper and Frantz fixed their long bayonets at the end of their carbines, then stepped stealthily about twenty paces backwards into the covert. They reached a rock of fifteen to twenty feet high, which Materne ascended, being unarmed; then, after a few words, exchanged in a low voice, Kasper examined his priming, and slowly took aim, while his brother stood close at hand. One of the Cossacks, the same who was letting his horse drink, was about a hundred paces off. As Kasper's shot awoke the deep echoes of the gorge, the Cossack, rolling over the head of his steed, disappeared beneath the ice of the lake. It is impossible to describe the stupefied surprise of his comrades when they heard the shot and witnessed its effect. They stared about them in every direction as the echo gradually died away, while a thick puff of smoke appeared above the cluster of trees where the huntsmen were.