the whole party collected, eager for the moment when they could fall to.  But Sakalar was cool and methodical even in that terrible hour.  He took a spoon, and quietly skimmed the pot, to take away the resin that rose to the surface.  Then gradually the bark melted away, and presently the pot was filled by a thick paste, and looked not unlike glue.  All gladly ate, and found it nutritive, pleasant, and warm.  They felt satisfied when the meal was over, and were glad to observe that the dogs returned to the camp completely satisfied also, which, under the circumstances, was matter of great gratification.

In the morning, after another mess of larch-bark soup, and after a little tea, the adventurers again advanced on their journey.  They were now in an arid, bleak, and terrible plain of vast extent.  Not a tree, not a shrub, not an elevation was to be seen.  Starvation was again staring them in the face, and no man knew when this dreadful plain would end.  That night the whole party cowered in their tent without fire, content to chew a few tea-leaves preserved from the last meal.  Serious thoughts were now entertained of abandoning their wealth in that wild region.  But as none pressed the matter very hardly, the ledges were harnessed again next morning, and the dogs driven on.  But man and beast were at the last gasp, and not ten miles were traversed that day, the end of which brought them to a large river, on the borders of which were some trees.  Being wide and rapid, it was not frozen, and there was still hope, The seine was drawn from a sledge, and taken into the water.  It was fastened from one side to another of a narrow gut, and there left.  It was of no avail examining it until morning, for the fish only come out at night.

There was not a man of the party who had his exact sense about him, while the dogs lay panting on the snow, their tongues hanging out, their eyes glaring with almost savage fury.  The trees round the bank were large and dry, and not one had an atom of soft bark on it.  All the resource they had was to drink huge draughts of tea, and then seek sleep.  Sakalar set the example, and the Kolimsk men, to whom such scenes were not new, followed his advice; but Ivan walked up and down before the tent.  A huge fire had been made, which was amply fed by the wood of the river bank, and it blazed on high, showing in bold relief the features of the scene.  Ivan gazed vacantly at everything; but he saw not the dark and glancing river—­he saw not the bleak plain of snow—­his eyes looked not on the romantic picture of the tent and its bivouac-fire:  his thoughts were on one thing alone.  He it was who had brought them to that pass, and on his head rested all the misery endured by man and beast, and, worst of all, by the good and devoted Kolina.

There she sat, too, on the ground, wrapped in her warm clothes, her eyes, fixed on the crackling logs.  Of what was she thinking?  Whatever occupied her mind, it was soon chased away by the sudden speech of Ivan.  “Kolina,” said he, in a tone which borrowed a little of intensity from the state of mind in which hunger had placed all of them, “canst thou ever forgive me?”