-lai' brag'-on) whom we hoped to induce
to accompany us across the mountains.

From Bragan we learned that there had been a heavy fall of snow on
the mountains during the previous week; but he thought that the warm
weather of the last three or four days had probably melted most of it
away, and that the trail would be at least passable. He was willing
at all events to try to take us across. Relieved of a good deal of
anxiety, we left Harchina early on the morning of the 17th, and
resumed our ascent of the river. On account of the rapidity of the
current in the main stream, we turned aside into one of the many
"protoks" (pro-tokes') or arms into which the river was here divided,
and poled slowly up for four hours. The channel was very winding and
narrow, so that one could touch with a paddle the bank on either
side, and in many places the birches and willows met over the stream,
dropping yellow leaves upon our heads as we passed underneath. Here
and there long scraggy tree-trunks hung over the bank into the water,
logs green with moss thrust their ends up from the depths of the
stream, and more than once we seemed about to come to a stop in the
midst of an impassable swamp. Nicolai Alexandrovich, our guide, whose
canoe preceded ours, sang for our entertainment some of the monotonous
melancholy songs of the Kamchadals, and Dodd and I in turn made
the woods ring with the enlivening strains of "Kingdom Coming" and
"Upidee." When we tired of music we made an amicable adjustment of our
respective legs in the narrow canoe, and lying back upon our bearskins
slept soundly, undisturbed by the splash of the water and the scraping
of poles at our very ears. We camped that night on a high sandy beach
over the water, ten or twelve miles south of Yolofka.

It was a warm still evening, and as we all sat on our bearskins around
the camp-fire, smoking and talking over the day's adventures, our
attention was suddenly attracted by a low rumbling, like distant
thunder, accompanied by occasional explosions. "What's that?" demanded
the Major quickly. "That," said Nicolai soberly, as he emptied his
lungs of smoke, "is the Kluchefskoi volcano talking to the peak of
Suveilich" (soo-veil'-itch). "Nothing private in the conversation, I
suppose," observed Dodd dryly; "he shouts it out loud enough."
The reverberations continued for several minutes, but the peak of
Suveilich made no response. That unfortunate mountain had recklessly
expended its vol