If luckily they did not meet with bandits, it was because these estimable people had totally disappeared from Western America, or were then engaged in financial operations on the borders of the old and new continent. What an end for the great great grand-children of the Karl Moors and Jean Sbogars. To whom could these reflections come but to Yvernès? Decidedly, he thought, the play is not worthy of the stage.

Suddenly Pinchinat stopped still. Frascolin, who was behind him, also stopped. Zorn and Yvernès were up with them immediately.

“What is it?” asked the second violin.

“I thought I saw something,” said the alto.

And this was no joke on his part. Really there was a form moving amid the trees.

“Human or animal?” asked Frascolin.

“I do not know.”

Which was the more formidable no one would have ventured to say. They crowded together, without retreating, without uttering a word.

Through a rift in the clouds the rays of the moon lighted the dome of this gloomy forest, and flittered to the ground through the branches of the sequoias. For a hundred yards or so the surroundings were visible.

Pinchinat had not been the dupe of an illusion. Too large for a man, the mass could only be a big quadruped. What quadruped? A wild beast? A wild beast certainly. But what wild beast?

“A plantigrade,” said Yvernès.

“Oh! bother the animal!” muttered Zorn, in a low impatient tone, “and by animal, I mean you, Yvernès. Why cannot you talk like other people? What do you mean by a plantigrade?”

“An animal that walks on its plants!” explained Pinchinat.

“A bear!” replied Frascolin.

It was a bear, and a large bear too. Lions, tigers, leopards are not met with in these forests of Lower California. Bears are, however, constantly found there, and encounters with them are generally disagreeable.

No surprise will be felt at the Parisians, with one accord, resolving to get out of the way of this plantigrade. Besides, was he not at home? And so the group closed up and retreated backwards, facing the bear, but moving slowly and deliberately, without seeming to be running away.

The bear followed at a slow pace, shaking his fore paws like the arms of a semaphore, and balancing himself on his haunches. Gradually he approached, and his demonstrations became hostile—gruff growls and a snapping of the jaws, which were rather alarming.

“Suppose we run each on his own account?” proposed “his highness.”

“Do nothing of the sort,” replied Frascolin. “One of us would be sure to be caught, and who would pay for the others?”

The imprudence was not committed; it was evident that its consequences might be disastrous.

The quartette thus arrived huddled together on the edge of the clearing where the darkness was not so great. The bear had approached within a dozen yards. Did the spot appear to him convenient for an attack? Probably, for his growls redoubled, and he hastened his advance.

Precipitate retreat of the group, and earnest appeals from the second violin, “Be cool! be cool, my friends!”

The clearing was crossed and they found the shelter of the trees. But there the peril was as great. By running from one tree to another, the animal could leap on them without its being possible to foresee his attack, and he was about to act in this way, when his terrible growlings ceased, he began to halt—

The deep gloom was filled with a penetrating musical sound, an expressive largo, in which the soul of an artiste was fully revealed.

It was Yvernès, who had drawn his violin from its case and made it vibrate under the powerful caress of the bow. An idea of genius! Why should not the musicians owe their safety to music? Had not the stones moved by the strains of Amphion ranged themselves round Thebes? Had not the wild beasts, thrilled by his lyrical inspirations, run to the knees of Orpheus? It seemed as though this Californian bear, under atavistic influence, was as artistically gifted as his congeners in the fable, for his fierceness disappeared, his instincts of melomania took possession of him, and as the quartette retreated in good order, he followed them uttering little cries of approval. It would not have taken much to make him say “Bravo!”

A quarter of an hour later Zorn and his companions were at the edge of the wood. They crossed it, Yvernès fiddling all the time.

The animal stopped. It looked as though he had no intention of going further. He patted his big paws against each other.

And then Pinchinat also seized his instrument, and shouted, —

“The dancing bear. Come on!”

And while the first violin ploughed away steadily at the well-known tune in the major, the alto assisted with a base shrill and false in the mediant minor.

The bear began to dance, lifting the right foot, lifting the left foot, turning and twisting, while the four men went further and further away.

“Well,” said Pinchinat,” he is only a circus bear.”

“It does not matter,” replied Frascolin, “Yvernès had a capital idea.”

“Let us run for it, allegretto” said the ‘cellist, “and don’t look behind.”

It was about nine o’clock when the four disciples of Apollo arrived at Freschal. They had come along splendidly during the latter half of their journey, although the plantigrade was not on their traces.

Some forty wooden houses around a square planted with beeches, that was Freschal, a village isolated in the country and about two miles from the coast.

Our artistes glided between a few houses shaded with large trees, came out on the square, looked up at the humble spire of a little church, stopped, formed in a circle as if they were about to give an appropriate performance, and began to talk.

“Is this a village? asked Pinchinat.

“Did you expect to find a city like Philadelphia or New York?” asked Frascolin.

“But your village is asleep!” replied Sebastien Zorn.

“Awake not a village that sleeps,” sighed Yvernès, melodiously.

“On the contrary,” said Pinchinat, “wake it up well.”

And unless they were to spend the night in the open air they would have to do so.

Yet the place was quite deserted, the silence complete. Not a shutter was open, not a light was at a window.

“And where is the hotel?” asked Frascolin.

Yes, the hotel which the driver had mentioned, where travellers in distress would receive good welcome and treatment. And the hotel-keeper who would send help to the unfortunate coachman. Had the poor man dreamt of these things? Or—another suggestion—had Zorn and his companions gone astray? Was this really Freschal?

These questions required an immediate reply. The villagers must be applied to for information, and the door of one of the houses must be knocked at; that of the hotel if possible, if by a lucky chance they could find which it was.

The four musicians began to reconnoitre round the place, prowling along the front of the houses, trying to find a sign hanging overhead. But there was nothing to show them which was the hotel.

As they could not find the hotel, perhaps there was some private house that would give them shelter. What native of Freschal would refuse a couple of dollars for a supper and a bed?

“Let us knock,” said Frascolin.

“And in time,” said Pinchinat, “in six-eight time.”

They knocked three or four times with the same result.