t of its strength,
vainly endeavoured to escape from the switch, hobbling with its short
legs through the deep snow which it threw up under itself.

Its muzzle, young-looking, with the nether lip drawn up like that of a
fish, nostrils distended and ears pressed back from fear, kept up for a
few seconds near Nikita's shoulder and then began to fall behind.

'Just see what liquor does!' said Nikita. 'They've tired that little
horse to death. What pagans!'

For a few minutes they heard the panting of the tired little horse and
the drunken shouting of the peasants. Then the panting and the shouts
died away, and around them nothing could be heard but the whistling
of the wind in their ears and now and then the squeak of their
sledge-runners over a windswept part of the road.

This encounter cheered and enlivened Vasili Andreevich, and he drove
on more boldly without examining the way-marks, urging on the horse and
trusting to him.

Nikita had nothing to do, and as usual in such circumstances he drowsed,
making up for much sleepless time. Suddenly the horse stopped and Nikita
nearly fell forward onto his nose.

'You know we're off the track again!' said Vasili Andreevich.

'How's that?'

'Why, there are no way-marks to be seen. We must have got off the road
again.'

'Well, if we've lost the road we must find it,' said Nikita curtly, and
getting out and stepping lightly on his pigeon-toed feet he started once
more going about on the snow.

He walked about for a long time, now disappearing and now reappearing,
and finally he came back.

'There is no road here. There may be farther on,' he said, getting into
the sledge.

It was already growing dark. The snow-storm had not increased but had
also not subsided.

'If we could only hear those peasants!' said Vasili Andreevich.

'Well they haven't caught us up. We must have gone far astray. Or maybe
they have lost their way too.'

'Where are we to go then?' asked Vasili Andreevich.

'Why, we must let the horse take its own way,' said Nikita. 'He will
take us right. Let me have the reins.'

Vasili Andreevich gave him the reins, the more willingly because his
hands were beginning to feel frozen in his thick gloves.

Nikita took the reins, but only held them, trying not to shake them
and rejoicing at his favourite's sagacity. And indeed the clever horse,
turning first one ear and then the other now to one side and then to the
other, began to wheel round.

'The o