The strangest part of this affair was that the least satisfied partner in the firm was not Trigaud-Vermin; quite the contrary. His thick brain knew that Aubin Courte-Joie was directing his physical strength in the direction of his sympathies. The words "White" and "Blue," which dropped into his large ears, always pricked up and listening, proved to him that he supported, in his quality of locomotive to the tavern-keeper, a cause whose worship was the one glimmer of light which had survived the collapse of his brain. He made it his glory. His confidence in Aubin Courte-Joie was boundless; he was proud of being linked body and soul to a mind whose superiority he recognized, and he was now attached to the man who might indeed be called his master, with the self-abnegation that characterizes all attachments which instinct governs. Trigaud carried Aubin sometimes on his back, sometimes on his shoulders, but always as affectionately as a mother carries her child. He took the utmost care of him; he showed him little attentions which seemed to disprove the poor devil's actual idiocy. He never thought of watching his own feet or guarding them from the cutting and wounding of stones and briers; but he carefully held aside, as he walked along, the bushes or branches which he thought might rub the body or scratch the face of his rider. When they had advanced about a third of the way into the open, Aubin Courte-Joie touched Trigaud on the shoulder, and the giant stopped short. Then, without needing to speak, the inn-keeper pointed with his finger to a large stone lying at the foot of an enormous beech-tree, in the right-hand corner of the clearing. The giant advanced to the beech, picked up the stone, and awaited orders. "Now," said Aubin Courte-Joie, "strike three blows." Trigaud did as he was told, timing the blows so that the second followed the first rapidly, and the third did not sound until after a certain interval. At this signal, which was made on the trunk of the tree, a little square of turf and moss rose from the ground, and a head beneath it. "Ho! it's you, is it, Maître Jacques? What's the watch-dog doing at the mouth of the burrow?" asked Aubin, visibly pleased at meeting with an intimate acquaintance. "Hey! my _gars_ Courte-Joie, this is the hour for business, don't you see; and I never like to let my rabbits out till I make sure myself the hunters are not about." "And you are right, Maître Jacques; you are right," replied Courte-Joie; "to-day, especially, for there are lots of guns on the plain." "Hey, how's that, tell me?" "That's what I want to do." "But first, won't you come in?" "Oh, no; no, Jacques. It is hot enough where we are,--isn't it Trigaud?" The giant uttered a grunt which might, at a pinch, pass for an affirmation.