rk over to you."

The Buriats were delighted indeed when they saw the child hopping about
the camp with his crutches, and their gratitude knew no bounds to their
guests. Alexis had made no secret to the Buriat of their intention of
trying to make their way to Pekin. He endeavoured in every way to
dissuade them from it.

"You will never find your way across the desert," he said, "and will die
for want of water. The people are wild and savage. They are ruled by
their lamas, and if they do not put you to death, which they would be
likely to do for what you have, they will certainly send you back to
Kiakhta and hand you over to the Russians there; and even if you got
through the desert the Chinese would seize you and send you back. It
would be madness to try. It would be better than that to go south and
make for Thibet, although even that would be a desperate expedition. The
tribes are wild and savage, the desert is terrible for those who do not
know it. You would never find the wells, and would perish miserably of
thirst even if you escaped being killed by the tribesmen. Still your
chances would be greater than they would be of reaching Pekin. But you
had far better make up your minds to live here. I will give you flocks
and herds. You should be as of my family, and you, Alexis, should marry
my sister, who is rich as well as pretty, for she owns a third of all
the flocks and herds you see."

Alexis warmly thanked the Buriat for the offer, but said they must take
time to consider it. "One might do worse," he said, laughing, to Godfrey
when they were alone. "The women are certainly a great deal
better-looking than the men, and the girl would be considered
fair-looking even in Russia. At any rate it would be vastly better being
a Buriat here than being inside that prison at Irkutsk."

"I agree with you there, Alexis; but it would be horrible being cut off
here from the world for life."

"But one is cut off in prison, Godfrey; and though I agreed to share
your attempt I have never been very hopeful about its success, and I am
still less hopeful now from what I hear of the difficulties ahead of us.
As I said when you first talked of it, there must be some frightful
difficulties here, or this would be the way by which convicts would
always try to escape, and yet we have never heard of one doing so."

"Yes, I begin to think myself I have made a mistake, Alexis, in choosing
this route instead of a northern one. Besides, we s