“You know we’re off the track again!” said Vasíli Andréevich.

“How’s that?”

“Why, there are no way-marks to be seen. We must have got off the road again.”

“Well, if we’ve lost the road we must find it,” said Nikíta curtly, and getting out and stepping lightly on his pigeon-toed feet he started once more going about on the snow.

He walked about for a long time, now disappearing and now reappearing, and finally he came back.

“There is no road here. There may be farther on,” he said, getting into the sledge.

It was already growing dark. The snowstorm had not increased but had also not subsided.

“If we could only hear those peasants!” said Vasíli Andréevich.