hould go a great deal
faster, because we should paddle and sail too."

"But if we don't go to the place you call Archangel, where should we
go?"

"We should keep far north of it, Luka, and sailing in a straight line
nearly due west, should strike the northern coast of Norway somewhere or
other. I should say, from what I saw of it on the map, it would be five
hundred miles from Waigatz. But that would be madness for us to attempt.
We might get caught in terrible storms; we might get into fogs, and as
we have no compass there we should lie, not knowing which way to go. No,
we must stick to the land till we get to the mouth of the White Sea.
With a favourable wind we should get across that in a day, and then go
on coasting again till we get beyond the Russian frontier; then at the
first village we come to we land, find out all about the distances, and
arrange to get taken in reindeer sledges to some regular settlement."

"What sort of people are they there?" Luka asked.

"They are the same sort of people as the Samoyedes. I don't know that
they are just the same. Anyhow, they speak the same sort of language.
Well, you know the Northern Ostjaks we stayed with speak nearly the same
as the Samoyedes. You could hardly get on with them at first, because
their talk was so different to that of the Southern Ostjaks; but you got
to speak it quite easily at last. So I have no doubt you will be able to
make any natives you may meet, whether they are Samoyedes or anything
else, understand you without difficulty.

"What is it, Jack? What are you whining about?" he asked the dog, who,
having made a hearty meal, had been lying down between them while they
were talking, but who now sat up, snuffing and whining uneasily.

"It may be either a fox or a bear," Luka said, making his way farther
back into the hut, and returning with his bow and arrows, Godfrey's gun,
and the two spears.

"I hope it is a bear," Godfrey said as he removed the charges of shot,
and rammed down bullets in their place. "We don't want any more skins,
unless it happens to be a black fox, which would be worth having, but a
supply of bear meat would come in very handy."

The dog's whine presently changed into an angry growl.

"Bear sure enough. I expect he knows of this place, and has come here
for shelter. He had much better have left it alone. It is lucky for us
that the fire has burnt low; it would have scared him if it had been
blazing. Lie down, Jack."