Translation:The High Mountains/39
The first evening the enemy didn't come. But the second he did.
One heard three axe blows in the vicinity. The person who was chopping stopped for a few seconds to cock an ear around, it seemed. After he gave another three blows.
Then suddenly one heard fifteen whistles in the dark. At first each separately, then the fifteen altogether, loud, very loud.
In fright the tree choppers went to pieces. Where they went, which way, nobody knew. They disappeared. The forest became silent again.
The day after, there in the forest they found an axe and a saw. The choppers never came back to reclaim them. The Yeusois understood from then on that they could no longer denude the forest.
Given that there were still countrymen who were rough and illiterate, they magnified everything out of fear. And they'd believe anything when they're afraid.
The old women explained these whistles like old women do. They said that they were spirits. The biggest spirits, according to the old women, are in the forests.
The Yeusois, although having often walked there during the night, believed the old women. This episode, recounted by the terrified tree choppers, was amplified by word of mouth. And as these illiterate men stayed in their rustic village, this story circulated night and day. And the more it circulated, the more frightening it became.
Finally, a number of the villagers believed that the Green Wood was haunted.
Added to this fear came the fear of authority. The Yeusois saw the two villagers, those who had hit Costas the mountain harvester, leave for prison in handcuffs, surrounded by four policemen. We owe their arrest to the children who went to the Small Village to warn the police.
At the top of a pine, on a high hill, the children attached a white cloth, like a signal. This can be seen from far away and shows that there are guards.
Our small team of forest rangers has done its duty. However, it hasn't ended there. The guard continues.
We are on the lookout.