“I say, Klim, why are you making the horse go like that?”

“I am not making her go.  She is racing along of herself. . . .  Once she gets into a run there is no means of stopping her.  It’s no pleasure to her that her legs are like that.”

“You are lying, my man, I see that you are lying.  Only I advise you not to drive so fast.  Hold your horse in a bit. . . .  Do you hear?  Hold her in!”

“What for?”

“Why . . . why, because four comrades were to drive after me from the station.  We must let them catch us up. . . .  They promised to overtake us in this forest.  It will be more cheerful in their company. . . .  They are a strong, sturdy set of fellows. . . .  And each of them has got a pistol.  Why do you keep looking round and fidgeting as though you were sitting on thorns? eh?  I, my good fellow, er . . . my good fellow . . . there is no need to look around at me . . . there is nothing interesting about me. . . .  Except perhaps the revolvers.  Well, if you like I will take them out and show you. . . .”

The surveyor made a pretence of feeling in his pockets and at that moment something happened which he could not have expected with all his cowardice.  Klim suddenly rolled off the cart and ran as fast as he could go into the forest.

“Help!” he roared.  “Help!  Take the horse and the cart, you devil, only don’t take my life.  Help!”

There was the sound of footsteps hurriedly retreating, of twigs snapping—­and all was still. . . .  The surveyor had not expected such a denouement.  He first stopped the horse and then settled himself more comfortably in the cart and fell to thinking.

“He has run off . . . he was scared, the fool.  Well, what’s to be done now?  I can’t go on alone because I don’t know the way; besides they may think I have stolen his horse. . . .  What’s to be done?”

“Klim!  Klim,” he cried.

“Klim,” answered the echo.

At the thought that he would have to sit through the whole night in the cold and dark forest and hear nothing but the wolves, the echo, and the snorting of the scraggy mare, the surveyor began to have twinges down his spine as though it were being rasped with a cold file.

“Klimushka,” he shouted.  “Dear fellow!  Where are you, Klimushka?”

For two hours the surveyor shouted, and it was only after he was quite husky and had resigned himself to spending the night in the forest that a faint breeze wafted the sound of a moan to him.

“Klim, is it you, dear fellow?  Let us go on.”

“You’ll mu-ur-der me!”

“But I was joking, my dear man!  I swear to God I was joking!  As though I had revolvers!  I told a lie because I was frightened.  For goodness sake let us go on, I am freezing!”

Klim, probably reflecting that a real robber would have vanished long ago with the horse and cart, came out of the forest and went hesitatingly up to his passenger.