his generally savage appearance, and had all been
inspired at the same moment with an irresistible inclination to take
him by the throat and rip him open with a bowie-knife, in a manner
so beautifully illustrated by the old geographies. Nothing but the
fractiousness of our horses and the rapidity of his flight had
prevented this desirable consummation. The Major even declared
positively that he had seen the bear a long time before, and only
rode over him "to scare him up," and said almost in the words of the
redoubtable Falstaff, "that if we would do him honour for it, so; if
not, we might scare up the next bear ourselves." Looking at the matter
calmly and dispassionately afterward, I thought it extremely probable
that if another bear did not scare the Major up, he never would go
out of his way to scare up another bear. We felt it to be our duty,
however, to caution him against imperilling the success of our
expedition by such reckless exploits in the way of scaring up wild
beasts.

Long before we reached Pushchin it grew dark; but our tired horses
freshened up after sunset, with the cool evening air, and about eight
o'clock we heard the distant howling of dogs, which we had already
come to associate with hot tea, rest, and sleep. In twenty minutes we
were lying comfortably on our bearskins in a Kamchadal house.

We had made sixty miles since daybreak; but the road had been good.
We were becoming more accustomed to horseback riding, and were by
no means so tired as we had been at Malqua. Only thirty versts now
intervened between us and the head-waters of the Kamchatka River,
where we were to abandon our horses and float down two hundred and
fifty miles on rafts or in native canoes.

A sharp trot of four hours over a level plain brought us on the
following morning to Sherom (sheh-rome'), where rafts had already been
prepared for our use.

It was with no little regret that I ended for the present my horseback
travel. The life suited me in every respect, and I could not recall
any previous journey which had ever afforded me more pure, healthful
enjoyment, or seemed more like a delightful pleasure excursion than
this. All Siberia, however, lay before us; and our regret at
leaving scenes which we should never again revisit was relieved by
anticipations of future adventures equally novel, and prospective
scenery grander even than anything which we had yet witnessed.

CHAPTER X

THE KAMCHATKA RIVER--LIFE ON A C