Page:Boys' Life Mar 1, 1911.djvu/29

Rh with the language, necessarily turned a deaf ear.

Greville only laughed.

"You can't unduly hasten matters in this country," he remarked, "try as you may."

"But," protested the other, "this is the sixth peasant who has interviewed us during the past two days, not including the man who knocked me up in the small hours."

"But this fellow," replied Greville, "has got just the kind of thing we want. His price is only thirty roubles—just half what others asked for ramshackle affairs half a century old."

"Never mind an old rouble or two," urged Cyril, "if you're satisfied with the sledge. This



hanging around day after day is maddening."

The hurried dialogue, closely followed by the moujik, who seemed to divine by voice and gesture what was passing, resulted in an abatement arrived at on the principle of splitting the difference, and the seller, more than satisfied, went off to fetch the sledge.

Meantime a messenger was despatched to summon the man with whom they had previously bargained for horses, and, as a consequence of Cyril having forced the pace, in less than an hour the sledge stood ready, packed with the baggage and a store of provisions for the journey. Into it both travelers tumbled with alacrity, and in a few minutes more the emschik (or native driver), haying mounted is driving perch, was urging on his horses down the road toward the frozen river with weird cries and much cracking of a knout-like whip.

Then, and not until then, did Cyril breathe freely again.

Krasnoiarsk, which at one time had seemed an impassable barrier, lay behind them, and the unknown future was being whirled toward the travelers at the rate of twenty versts to the hour.

From beneath the hood of the sledge little could be seen save the flanks of the plunging horses and the muffled figure of the yemschik; little heard beyond the occasional unearthly cries to which the latter gave vent as a means of maintaining the pace.

Had either of the travelers been in the mood for much talking at the outset of the journey, they would have found conversation difficult to sustain, what with the swaying motion of the sledge, the continual jolting over rough ice, and the before-mentioned distractions on the driver's part.

As a matter of fact they could do little else but hang on for dear life while occupying their minds with individual reflections.

Thus was the first stage of fifteen miles accomplished while yet the day was young—the second, third, and fourth.

By this time both travelers began to experience the numbing effects of the intense cold, and whereas at the previous stages Cyril had refused to leave the sledge, and scouted the idea