up the whip from under the straw, he struck to the left of the place where he had been sitting.
The snow that year was not deep, so that there was a way through it everywhere, yet here and there it reached up to a man's knee, and found its way into Nikita's boots. Nikita tramped along, and felt his way with his whip and his feet, but there was no sign of the road anywhere.
"Well, how is it?" said Vasily Andreich, when Nikita picked his way back to the sledge.
"There is no road this way. We must go along in the other direction."
"Look! What is that black thing in front? You go over yonder and see!" said Vasily Andreich.
Nikita went thither also, he went right up to the black thing in front — it was the ground that was black there, sprinkled over with bare-lying winter seed, which had coloured the snow black. After turning to the right also, Nikita returned to the sledge, brushed off the snow from his clothes, shook it out of his boots, and sat down in the sledge again.
"We must go to the right," said he decisively. "The wind was blowing upon my left side, and now it is right on my nose. Go to the right," said he in a decided tone.
Vasily Andreich listened to him, and turned to the right.
Still there was no sign of a road. Thus on they went for some time. The wind did not abate, and the light snowflakes continued to fall.
"We have plainly quite lost our way, Vasily Andreich," said Nitika suddenly, with an air of some-
16
