ervals to Dodd,
who, with stoical imperturbability, was riding quietly in advance:
"Dodd! oh, Dodd! haven't we got most to that _con-found-ed_ Malqua
yet?" Dodd would strike his horse a sharp blow with a willow switch,
turn half round in his saddle, and reply, with a quizzical smile, that
we were "not most there yet, but would be soon!"--an equivocal sort of
consolation which did not inspire us with much enthusiasm. At last,
when it had already begun to grow dark, we saw a high column of white
steam in the distance, which rose, Dodd and Viushin said, from the hot
springs of Malqua; and in fifteen minutes we rode, tired, wet, and
hungry, into the settlement. Supper was a secondary consideration with
me _that_ night. All I wanted was to crawl under a table where no one
would step on me, and be let alone. I had never before felt such a
vivid consciousness of my muscular and osseous system. Every separate
bone and tendon in my body asserted its individual existence by a
distinct and independent ache, and my back in twenty minutes was as
inflexible as an iron ramrod. I felt a melancholy conviction that I
never should measure five feet ten inches again, unless I could lie on
some Procrustean bed and have my back stretched out to its original
longitude. Repeated perpendicular concussions had, I confidently
believed, telescoped my spinal vertebrae into each other, so that
nothing short of a surgical operation would ever restore them to their
original positions. Revolving in my mind such mournful considerations,
I fell asleep under a table, without even pulling off my boots.

[Illustration: Cap of brown and white fur]

CHAPTER IX

THE BEAUTIFUL VALLEY OF GENAL--WALLS OF LITERATURE--SCARING UP A
BEAR--END OF HORSEBACK RIDE

It was hard work on the following morning to climb again into the
saddle, but the Major was insensible to all appeals for delay. Stern
and inflexible as Rhadamanthus, he mounted stiffly upon his feather
pillow and gave the signal for a start. With the aid of two
sympathetic Kamchadals, who had perhaps experienced the misery of a
stiff back, I succeeded in getting astride a fresh horse, and we
rode away into the Genal (gen-ahl') valley--the garden of southern
Kamchatka.

The village of Malqua lies on the northern slope of the Kamchatka
River watershed, surrounded by low barren granite hills, and reminded
me a little in its situation of Virginia City, Nevada. It is noted
chiefly for its hot minera