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On a sudden that veil lifts; and five-and-twenty miles away, beneath the black edge of the cloud, against the clear blue sky, stands out the whole snow-range of the Pyrenees; and in the midst, exactly opposite, filling up a vast gap which is the Val d'Ossau, the huge cone, still snowy white, of the Pic du Midi.
What has become a very small part, be it recollected, of the whole amount of all the rock which has been removed by rain and thunder, frost and snow, in the process of scooping out the deep valleys of the Pyrenees? Out of that one crack, which men call the Val d'Ossau, stone has been swept enough to form a considerable island. Where is it all? In these Landes.
There they stand, one straight continuous jagged wall, of which no one point seems higher than another. From the Pic d'Ossau, by the Mont Perdu and the Maladetta to the Pic de Lart, are peaks past counting hard clear white against the hard clear blue, and blazing with keen light beneath the high southern sun.
In an instant almost, the bargain was made. Ten dollars for the haunt of the bear! The Pic du Midi d'Ossau was now in sight; and, leaving the beaten path that passed near its base, our hunters turned off up a lateral ravine.
Up this mountain gorge went our heroes, their faces turned southward, and their eyes carried high up to the Pic du Midi d'Ossau the mountain of the bears an appropriate name for that beacon which was now directing their course.
It was by the Val d'Ossau, literally the "valley of the bear," that they made their approach to the mountains, that valley celebrated as the residence and hunting-ground of Henri of Navarre: but now, in modern days, noted for its valuable thermal springs of Eaux Bonnes and Eaux Chaudes.
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