Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/401

Rh little more than a mile, when he has the advantage of fully a mile at the start.

"Sometimes when a pack of wolves has run down a deer and killed it, a pair of bearcoots will appear and take possession of the game. Two bearcoots are a match for a dozen wolves, and the latter acknowledge their inferiority by getting out of the way immediately.

"Some experiments on the power of the bearcoot to resist poison were made at Barnaool shortly before my visit. Half a grain of curara (deadly

poison from Brazil) had no effect beyond increasing the bird's appetite. Four grains of strychnine caused his feathers to tremble fifteen minutes after swallowing the stuff, and five hours later threw him into convulsions from which he recovered next day. A week later seven grains of curara had no effect upon him for two days; then he went into convulsions, which lasted several hours and ended with his death.

"But we are staying too long at Barnaool, and must go to the road again. From Barnaool we went northward and westward to Tumen over the great Baraba Steppe; it is but a steppe from one place to the other,