ll imagine we have taken we need not trouble ourselves
about them; besides, we shall soon be getting into wooded country. I
believe it is all wood round the lower end of the lake, and we shall be
quite out of the way of traffic, for everything going east from Irkutsk
is taken across the lake by steamer."

After twelve hours' walking, with only one halt of half an hour for
refreshment, they reached the edge of the forest, and after again making
a hearty meal of their bread and cold meat, and taking each a sip from a
bottle containing cold tea, they lay down and slept until late in the
afternoon.

"Well, we have accomplished so much satisfactorily," Alexis said. "Now
we have to keep on to Kaltuk, at the extreme south-western point of the
lake. It is a very small place, I believe, and that is where we must get
what we want. We shall be there by the evening. We shall be just right,
as it wouldn't do for us to go in until it is pretty nearly dark. A
place of that sort is sure to have a store where they sell clothes and
other things, and trade with the people round."

They struck the lake a mile or two from its extremity, and following it
until they could see the roofs of the houses lay down for an hour until
it should be dark enough to enter.

"We had better put on our fur coats," Alexis said. "The people all wear
long coats of some fashion or other, and in the dusk we shall pass well
enough."

It was a village containing some fifty or sixty houses, for the most
part the tent-like structures of the Buriats. They met no one in the
street, and kept on until they saw a light in a window of a house larger
than any others, and looking in saw that it was the place for which they
were in search. Opening the door they went in and closed it behind them.
A man came out from the room behind the shop. He stopped for a moment at
seeing two strangers, then advanced with a suspicious look on his face.

"Do you want a bargain?" Alexis asked him abruptly.

"I have little money to buy with," he said sullenly.

"That matters little, for we will take it out in goods."

The man hesitated. Alexis drew out the long keen amputating knife. "Look
here," he said. "We are not to be fooled with. You may guess what we are
or not; it is nothing to us and nothing to you. We want some of your
goods, and are ready to give you good exchange for them; we are not
robbers. Here is this coat; look at it; it is almost unworn. I have used
it only one wint