t you would have suffered much
from the frost and snow."

"What matter! Winter is the friend of Russia."

"Yes, Nadia, but what a constitution anyone must have to endure such
friendship! I have often seen the temperature in the Siberian steppes
fall to more than forty degrees below freezing point! I have felt,
notwithstanding my reindeer coat, my heart growing chill, my limbs
stiffening, my feet freezing in triple woolen socks; I have seen my
sleigh horses covered with a coating of ice, their breath congealed
at their nostrils. I have seen the brandy in my flask change into hard
stone, on which not even my knife could make an impression. But my
sleigh flew like the wind. Not an obstacle on the plain, white and
level farther than the eye could reach! No rivers to stop one! Hard
ice everywhere, the route open, the road sure! But at the price of what
suffering, Nadia, those alone could say, who have never returned, but
whose bodies have been covered up by the snow storm."

"However, you have returned, brother," said Nadia.

"Yes, but I am a Siberian, and, when quite a child, I used to follow my
father to the chase, and so became inured to these hardships. But when
you said to me, Nadia, that winter would not have stopped you, that you
would have gone alone, ready to struggle against the frightful Siberian
climate, I seemed to see you lost in the snow and falling, never to rise
again."

"How many times have you crossed the steppe in winter?" asked the young
Livonian.

"Three times, Nadia, when I was going to Omsk."

"And what were you going to do at Omsk?"

"See my mother, who was expecting me."

"And I am going to Irkutsk, where my father expects me. I am taking him
my mother's last words. That is as much as to tell you, brother, that
nothing would have prevented me from setting out."

"You are a brave girl, Nadia," replied Michael. "God Himself would have
led you."

All day the tarantass was driven rapidly by the iemschiks, who succeeded
each other at every stage. The eagles of the mountain would not have
found their name dishonored by these "eagles" of the highway. The high
price paid for each horse, and the tips dealt out so freely, recommended
the travelers in a special way. Perhaps the postmasters thought it
singular that, after the publication of the order, a young man and his
sister, evidently both Russians, could travel freely across Siberia,
which was closed to everyone else, but their papers were al