die, while they would
still stand as they had stood, wit h no regret for the dead nor interest
in the living, and no soul would ever know why they stood there, and
what secret of the steppes was hidden under them.

The rooks awakening, flew one after another in silence over the earth.
No meaning was to be seen in the languid flight of those long-lived
birds, nor in the morning which is repeated punctually every twenty-four
hours, nor in the boundless expanse of the steppe.

The overseer smiled and said:

"What space, Lord have mercy upon us! You would have a hunt to find
treasure in it! Here," he went on, dropping his voice and making a
serious face, "here there are two treasures buried for a certainty.
The gentry don't know of them, but the old peasants, particularly
the soldiers, know all about them. Here, somewhere on that ridge [the
overseer pointed with his whip] robbers one time attacked a caravan of
gold; the gold was being taken from Petersburg to the Emperor Peter who
was building 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-