o fear that something might happen to these delicacies
if we should attempt to carry them with us, Dodd, as a precautionary
measure, ate one of them up to the last blueberry; and rather than
have him sacrifice himself to a mistaken idea of duty by trying to eat
the other, I attended to its preservation myself and put it for ever
beyond the reach of accidental contingencies.

On the following day we reached the little log _yurt_ on the Malmofka,
where we had spent one night on our way to Gizhiga; and as the cold
was still intense we were glad to avail ourselves again of its
shelter, and huddle around the warm fire which Yagor kindled on a sort
of clay altar in the middle of the room. There was not space enough on
the rough plank floor to accommodate all our party, and our men built
a huge fire of tamarack logs outside, hung over their teakettles,
thawed out their frosty beards, ate dry fish, sang jolly Russian
songs, and made themselves so boisterously happy, that we were tempted
to give up the luxury of a roof for the sake of sharing in their
out-door amusements and merriment. Our thermometers, however, marked
35 deg. below zero, and we did not venture out of doors except when an
unusually loud burst of laughter announced some stupendous Siberian
joke which we thought would be worth hearing. The atmosphere outside
seemed to be just cool enough to exert an inspiriting influence
upon our lively Cossacks, but it was altogether too bracing for
unaccustomed American constitutions. With a good fire, however, and
plenty of hot tea, we succeeded in making ourselves very comfortable
inside the _yurt_, and passed away the long evening in smoking
Circassian tobacco and pine bark, singing American songs, telling
stories, and quizzing our good-natured but unsophisticated Cossack
Meranef.

It was quite late when we finally crawled into our fur bags to sleep;
but long afterward we could hear the songs, jokes, and laughter of our
drivers as they sat around the camp-fire, and told funny stories of
Siberian travel.

We were up on the following morning long before daylight; and, after a
hasty breakfast of black-bread, dried fish, and tea, we harnessed our
dogs, wet down our sledge-runners with water from the teakettle to
cover them with a coating of ice, packed up our camp equipage, and,
leaving the shelter of the tamarack forest around the _yurt_, drove
out upon the great snowy Sahara which lies between the Malmofka River
and Penzhin