the road and the grass beside the
fence. Smoke rose everywhere in clouds from the chimneys. The people
were going out of the village, some to their work, some to the river,
and some to the cordon. The hunters walked together along the damp,
grass-grown path. The dogs, wagging their tails and looking at their
masters, ran on both sides of them. Myriads of gnats hovered in the air
and pursued the hunters, covering their backs, eyes, and hands. The air
was fragrant with the grass and with the dampness of the forest. Olenin
continually looked round at the ox-cart in which Maryanka sat urging on
the oxen with a long switch.

It was calm. The sounds from the village, audible at first, now no
longer reached the sportsmen. Only the brambles cracked as the dogs ran
under them, and now and then birds called to one another. Olenin knew
that danger lurked in the forest, that abreks always hid in such
places. But he knew too that in the forest, for a man on foot, a gun is
a great protection. Not that he was afraid, but he felt that another in
his place might be; and looking into the damp misty forest and
listening to the rare and faint sounds with strained attention, he
changed his hold on his gun and experienced a pleasant feeling that was
new to him. Daddy Eroshka went in front, stopping and carefully
scanning every puddle where an animal had left a double track, and
pointing it out to Olenin. He hardly spoke at all and only occasionally
made remarks in a whisper. The track they were following had once been
made by wagons, but the grass had long overgrown it. The elm and
plane-tree forest on both sides of them was so dense and overgrown with
creepers that it was impossible to see anything through it. Nearly
every tree was enveloped from top to bottom with wild grape vines, and
dark bramble bushes covered the ground thickly. Every little glade was
overgrown with blackberry bushes and grey feathery reeds. In places,
large hoof-prints and small funnel-shaped pheasant-trails led from the
path into the thicket. The vigour of the growth of this forest,
untrampled by cattle, struck Olenin at every turn, for he had never
seen anything like it. This forest, the danger, the old man and his
mysterious whispering, Maryanka with her virile upright bearing, and
the mountains--all this seemed to him like a dream.

'A pheasant has settled,' whispered the old man, looking round and
pulling his cap over his face--'Cover your mug! A pheasant!' he