Page:More Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/83

Rh This question did not appear to please the drivers.

"Where? Who can make that out? We may be going right away to the Calmucks," answered the Counsellor.

"But what shall we do then?"

"Do? We must go on, and perhaps we shall get through," said he surlily.

"And what if we don't get through, and the horses stop in the snow? What then?"

"What then? Why, nothing."

"We might be frozen."

"It's possible, certainly, for we cannot see any ricks, which means that we're going right into the Calmuck country. The first thing to do is to look at the snow."

"And aren't you at all afraid of being frozen?" asked the old man, with a tremulous voice.

Notwithstanding that he was making merry with me, it was plain that he was all of a tremble to the very last bone.

"Well, it's pretty cold," I said.

"Alas, for you, sir! If you were only like me; no, no, run along, that will make you warm."

"First of all, we ought to show him how to run after the sledge," said the Counsellor.

"Ready if you please," bawled Alec to me from the sledge in front.

The snowstorm was so violent that only with the utmost exertion, bending right forward and grasping