a fleet at the time at Voronezh.  The robbers killed the men with the caravan and buried the gold, but did not find it again afterwards.  Another treasure was buried by our Cossacks of the Don.  In the year ’12 they carried off lots of plunder of all sorts from the French, goods and gold and silver.  When they were going homewards they heard on the way that the government wanted to take away all the gold and silver from them.  Rather than give up their plunder like that to the government for nothing, the brave fellows took and buried it, so that their children, anyway, might get it; but where they buried it no one knows.”

“I have heard of those treasures,” the old man muttered grimly.

“Yes...”  Panteley pondered again.  “So it is....”

A silence followed.  The overseer looked dreamily into the distance, gave a laugh and pulled the rein, still with the same expression as though he had forgotten something or left something unsaid.  The horse reluctantly started at a walking pace.  After riding a hundred paces Panteley shook his head resolutely, roused himself from his thoughts and, lashing his horse, set off at a trot.

The shepherds were left alone.

“That was Panteley from Makarov’s estate,” said the old man.  “He gets a hundred and fifty a year and provisions found, too.  He is a man of education....”

The sheep, waking up—­there were about three thousand of them—­began without zest to while away the time, nipping at the low, half-trampled grass.  The sun had not yet risen, but by now all the barrows could be seen and, like a cloud in the distance, Saur’s Grave with its peaked top.  If one clambered up on that tomb one could see the plain from it, level and boundless as the sky, one could see villages, manor-houses, the settlements of the Germans and of the Molokani, and a long-sighted Kalmuck could even see the town and the railway-station.  Only from there could one see that there was something else in the world besides the silent steppe and the ancient barrows, that there was another life that had nothing to do with buried treasure and the thoughts of sheep.

The old man felt beside him for his crook—­a long stick with a hook at the upper end—­and got up.  He was silent and thoughtful.  The young shepherd’s face had not lost the look of childish terror and curiosity.  He was still under the influence of what he had heard in the night, and impatiently awaiting fresh stories.

“Grandfather,” he asked, getting up and taking his crook, “what did your brother Ilya do with the soldier?”

The old man did not hear the question.  He looked absent-mindedly at the young man, and answered, mumbling with his lips: 

“I keep thinking, Sanka, about that writing that was shown to that soldier at Ivanovka.  I didn’t tell Panteley—­God be with him—­but you know in that writing the place was marked out so that even a woman could find it.  Do you know where it is?  At Bogata Bylotchka at the spot, you know, where the ravine parts like a goose’s foot into three little ravines; it is the middle one.”