Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Polish-Greek-Belgian-Hungarian).djvu/185

Rh be seen the powder factory of Usiska and the bomb factory of Szatkin, where the exiled Russian convicts work. At the meeting of the rivers are the small towns of Stepnàja, Troiczka Uszt, Magitnàja, Petroluskàja, Kojelga, guarded by native Cossacks, whilst others are garrisoned by disgraced battalions. Hither came Pugasceff with the remnants of his army. Galiczin pursued him for some time, but finally came to the conclusion that in this uninhabited country, where the solitary road is only indicated by snowcovered trenches, he could not, with his regular troops, reach an opponent whose tactics were to run away as far and as fast as possible.

Pugasceff rallied to him all the tribes along the Ural district, who deserted their homesteads and followed him.

The winter suddenly disappeared, and those mild, short April days commenced which one can only realize in Siberia, when at night the water freezes, while in the daytime the melting snow covers the expanse of waste, every mountain stream becomes a torrent, and the traveller finds in the place of every brook a vast sea. The runaway might still proceed by sleclge,but the pursuer would only find before him fathomless morasses. Only one leader had the courage to pursue Pugasceff even into this land—this was Michelson. Just as the Siberian wolf who has tasted the blood of the wild boar does not swerve from the