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Labouise, in a few strokes, touched the beach, and his companion, jumping to the ground, picked up a little gray rabbit, not yet dead. Then the boat once more disappeared into the fog in order to get to the other side, where it could keep away from the game wardens. The two men seemed to be riding easily on the water.
Maillochon asked: "Well, what are we going to do now?" Labouise answered: "Don't worry, sister. Get the thing on the boat; we're going to have some fun when night comes." They went and got the boat. The animal's body was placed on the bottom, covered with fresh grass, and the two men stretched out on it and went to sleep.
But it's big enough. But what is it? If I told you I'd be lying, and you know, sister, between us everything's above-board." Anxiously the man asked: "Think it's venison?" Labouise answered: "Might be and then again it might not! Venison? uh! uh! might be a little big for that! Mind you, I don't say it's a doe, because I don't know, but it might be."
By eleven o'clock the last customer had left and old man Jules winked at Labouise and asked: "Well, have you got any?" Labouise made a motion with his head and answered: "Perhaps so, perhaps not!" The dealer insisted: "Perhaps you've not nothing but gray ones?" Chicot dug his hands into his flannel shirt, drew out the ears of a rabbit and declared: "Three francs a pair!"
The weapon had disappeared under the board which served as a hiding place and the rabbit was stuffed into Chicot's loose shirt. After about a quarter of an hour Labouise asked: "Well, sister, shall we get one more?" "It will suit me," Maillochon answered. The boat started swiftly down the current. The mist, which was hiding both shores, was beginning to rise.
Rowing about on the river day and night, watching for any prey, dead or alive, poachers on the water and nocturnal hunters, sometimes ambushing venison in the Saint-Germain forests, sometimes looking for drowned people and searching their clothes, picking up floating rags and empty bottles; thus did Labouise and Maillochon live easily.
Then began a long discussion about the price. Two francs sixty-five and the two rabbits were delivered. As the two men were getting up to go, old man Jules, who had been watching them, exclaimed: "You have something else, but you won't say what." Labouise answered: "Possibly, but it is not for you; you're too stingy." The man, growing eager, kept asking: "What is it? Something big?
Here they stopped their boat, tied it to a tree and went to sleep in the bottom of it. From time to time Labouise would sit up and look over the horizon with his open eye. The last of the morning mist had disappeared and the large summer sun was climbing in the blue sky. On the other side of the river the vineyard-covered hill stretched out in a semicircle. One house stood out alone at the summit.
Then Labouise, in great humor, got the gun and held it out to Maillochon, saying: "Each one in turn; we're going after big game, sister. Don't get so near or you'll kill it right away! You must make the pleasure last a little." He placed his companion about forty paces from the victim.
The donkey received the charge in his thighs, but the shot was so small and came from such a distance that he thought he was being stung by flies, for he began to thrash himself with his tail. Labouise sat down to laugh more comfortably, while Maillochon reloaded the weapon, so happy that he seemed to sneeze into the barrel.
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