"We must go four or five hundred versts," very calmly announced my
fellow traveler, who called himself "Ivan," a name that meant nothing to
my mind or heart in this land where every second man bore the same.

"We shall travel then for a very long time," I remarked regretfully.

"Not more than one week, perhaps even less," he answered.

That night we spent in the woods under the wide spreading branches of
the fir trees. It was my first night in the forest under the open sky.
How many like this I was destined to spend in the year and a half of my
wanderings! During the day there was very sharp cold. Under the hoofs of
the horses the frozen snow crunched and the balls that formed and broke
from their hoofs rolled away over the crust with a sound like crackling
glass. The heathcock flew from the trees very idly, hares loped slowly
down the beds of summer streams. At night the wind began to sigh and
whistle as it bent the tops of the trees over our heads; while below it
was still and calm. We stopped in a deep ravine bordered by heavy trees,
where we found fallen firs, cut them into logs for the fire and, after
having boiled our tea, dined.

Ivan dragged in two tree trunks, squared them on one side with his ax,
laid one on the other with the squared faces together and then drove in
a big wedge at the butt ends which separated them three or four inches.
Then we placed live coals in this opening and watched the fire run
rapidly the whole length of the squared faces vis-a-vis.

"Now there will be a fire in the morning," he announced. "This is the
'naida' of the gold prospectors. We prospectors wandering in the woods