[Illustration:  A WOMAN FEEDING A DOG-TEAM IN GIZHIGA From a painting by George A. Frost]

The thermometer at noon marked—­35 deg., and at sunset it was—­38 deg., and sinking.  We had seen no wood since leaving the yurt on the Malmofka River, and, not daring to camp without a fire, we travelled for five hours after dark, guided only by the stars and a bluish aurora which was playing away in the north.  Under the influence of the intense cold, frost formed in great quantities upon everything which was touched by our breaths.  Beards became stiff tangled masses of frozen iron wire, eyelids grew heavy with long white rims of frost, and froze together when we winked, and our dogs, enveloped in dense clouds of steam, looked like snowy polar wolves.  Only by running constantly beside our sledges could we keep any sensation of life in our feet.  About eight o’clock a few scattered trees loomed up darkly against the eastern sky, and a joyful shout from our leading drivers announced the discovery of wood.  We had reached a small stream called the Usinova (Oo-seen’-ova), seventy-five versts east of Gizhiga, in the very middle of the great steppe.  It was like coming to an island after having been long at sea.  Our dogs stopped and curled themselves up into little round balls on the snow, as if conscious that the long day’s journey was ended, while our drivers proceeded to make rapidly and systematically a Siberian half-faced camp.  Three sledges were drawn up together, so as to make a little semi-enclosure about ten feet square; the snow was all shovelled out of the interior, and banked up around the three closed sides, like a snow fort, and a huge fire of trailing-pine branches was built at the open end.  The bottom of this little snow-cellar was then strewn to a depth of three or four inches with twigs of willow and alder, shaggy bearskins were spread down to make a warm, soft carpet, and our fur sleeping-bags arranged for the night.  Upon a small table extemporised out of a candle-box, which stood in the centre, Yagor soon placed two cups of steaming hot tea and a couple of dried fish.  Then stretching ourselves out in luxurious style upon our bearskin carpet, with our feet to the fire and our backs against pillows, we smoked, drank tea, and told stories in perfect comfort.  After supper the drivers piled dry branches of trailing-pine upon the fire until it sent up a column of hot ruddy flame ten feet in height, and then gathering in a picturesque group around the blaze, they sang for hours the wild melancholy songs of the Kamchadals, and told never-ending stories of hardship and adventure on the great steppes and along the coast of the “Icy Sea.”  At last the great constellation of Orion marked bedtime.  Amid a tumult of snarling and fighting the dogs were fed their daily allowance of one dried fish each, fur stockings, moist with perspiration, were taken off and dried by the fire, and putting on our heaviest fur kukhlankas we crawled feet first into our bearskin bags, pulled them up over our heads, and slept.