“Well, it’s easy to find out if I did hit him, there would be blood on the snow.—Come, Mocquet, let us run and see.” And suiting the action to the word, I set off running.
“Stop, stop, do not run, whatever you do,” cried Mocquet, clenching his teeth and stamping. “We must go quietly, until we know better what we have to deal with.”
“Well, we will go quietly, then; but at any rate, let us go!”
Mocquet then began to follow the wolf’s track, step by step.
“There’s not much fear of losing it,” I said.
“It’s plain enough.”
“Yes, but that’s not what I am looking for.”
“What are you looking for, then?”
“You will know in a minute or two.”
The other huntsmen had now joined us, and as they came along after us, the keeper related to them what had taken place. Meanwhile, Mocquet and I continued to follow the wolf’s footprints, which were deeply indented in the snow. At last we came to the spot where he had received my fire.
“There, Mocquet,” I said to him, “you see I did miss him after all!”
“How do you know that you missed him?”
“Because there are no blood marks.”
“Look for the mark of your bullet, then, in the snow.”