urnous, heavy high boots, a bright
woolen sash, a red cap with a fur border--the dress of a well-to-do
peasant or commercial traveler. In a small bag he carried a change of
clothing and his provisions: his money and passports were hidden about
his person; he was armed with a dagger and a bludgeon. He had scarcely
crossed the frozen Irtish when the sound of a sleigh behind him
brought his heart to his mouth: he held his ground and was hailed by a
peasant, who wanted to drive a bargain with him for a lift. After a
little politic chaffering he got in, and was carried to a village
about eight miles off at a gallop. There the peasant set him down,
and, knocking at the first house, he asked for horses to the fair at
Irbite. More bargaining, but they were soon on the road. Erelong,
however, it began to snow; the track disappeared, the driver lost his
way; they wandered about for some time, and were forced to stop all
night in a forest--a night of agony. They were not twelve miles from
Ekaterininski-Zavod: every minute the fugitive fancied he heard the
bells of the pursuing _kibitkas_; he had a horrible suspicion, too,
that his driver was delaying purposely to betray him, as had befallen
a fellow-countryman in similar circumstances. But at daybreak they
found the road, and by nightfall, having changed horses once or twice
and traveled like the wind, he was well on his way. At a fresh relay
he was forced to go into a tavern to make change to pay his driver: as
he stood among the tipsy crowd he was hustled and his pocket-book
snatched from his hand. He could not discover the thief nor recover
the purse: he durst not appeal to the police, and had to let it go. In
it, besides a quarter of his little hoard of money, there was a
memorandum of every town and village on his way to Archangel, and his
_plakatny_. In this desperate strait--for the last loss seemed to cut
off hope--he had one paramount motive for going on: return was
impossible. Once having left Ekaterininski-Zavod, his fate was sealed
if retaken: he must go forward. Forward he went, falling in with
troops of travelers bound to the fair. On the third evening of his
flight, notwithstanding the time lost, he was at the gates of Irbite,
over six hundred miles from his prison. "Halt and show your passport!"
cried the sentinel. He was fumbling for the local pass with a sinking
heart when the soldier whispered, "Twenty kopecks and go ahead." He
passed in. The loss of his money an