Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/323



HALL I relate to you the end? It was not less wonderful than the beginning.

When we awoke the savage arranged the snow shoes he had brought under my feet, cut me a staff, placed it in my hands and taught me how to use it, then he bound a rope round me and taking the end in his hand drew me after him.

You ask whither? First of all, to pay our debt for the bear's meat. We hoped to find dogs there and to proceed further. But we did not go where my inexperienced plans had at first attracted me. In the smoky hut of our creditor another lesson awaited me, which had a most important influence on all my subsequent activity. The fact is, that the master for whom my savage had left his fur cap, had not been out shooting at the time that my deliverer had got there, but had been rescuing my friend Kiriak, whom he had found in the midst of the desert, abandoned by his Christian driver. Yes, gentlemen, here in this hut, lying near a dim stinking fire, I found