There a man, armed with a gun, had suddenly appeared and asked him what he was doing in the forest at that hour.

Jacques replied that he was watching for game.
"Then go further," said the man; "don't you see that this place is taken ?" Jacques admitted the justice of this claim, and went on about a hundred rods further, but, just as he was slanting to the left to return to the crossroad, another man, armed like the first, had suddenly started up with the same inopportune question.

Jacques gave him the same answer: "Watching for game." The man had then pointed to the edge of the woods, saying in a threatening manner: "If I have any advice to give you, my young friend, it is to go over there.

It will be safer for you than here." Jacques had taken this advice, or at least had pretended to take it, for as soon as he had reached the edge of the woods he had crept along in the ditch, until, convinced that it would be impossible to recover M.de Valensolle's track, he had struck into the open, and returned by fields and the highroad to the tavern, where he hoped to, and in fact did, find his father.
They reached the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines, as we have seen, just as day was breaking.
All that we have related was repeated to Roland with a multiplicity of detail which we must omit, and convinced the young officer that the two armed men, who had warned off Jacques, were not poachers as they seemed, but Companions of Jehu.

But where was their haunt located?
There was no deserted convent, no ruin, in that direction.
Suddenly Roland clapped his hand to his head.