soldiers, who helped him, keep watch outside, and forcing the courtyard
door entered the shop and took all the money he could lay his hands on.
All this was done very cleverly, and no trace was left of the burglary.
The money Vassily had found in the shop amounted to 370 roubles. He gave
a hundred roubles to his assistants, and with the rest left for another
town where he gave way to dissipation in company of friends of both
sexes. The police traced his movements, and when at last he was arrested
and put into prison he had hardly anything left out of the money which
he had stolen.


XIV

IVAN MIRONOV had become a very clever, fearless and successful
horse-thief. Afimia, his wife, who at first used to abuse him for his
evil ways, as she called it, was now quite content and felt proud of her
husband, who possessed a new sheepskin coat, while she also had a warm
jacket and a new fur cloak.

In the village and throughout the whole district every one knew quite
well that Ivan Mironov was at the bottom of all the horse-stealing; but
nobody would give him away, being afraid of the consequences. Whenever
suspicion fell on him, he managed to clear his character. Once during
the night he stole horses from the pasture ground in the village
Kolotovka. He generally preferred to steal horses from landowners or
tradespeople. But this was a harder job, and when he had no chance of
success he did not mind robbing peasants too. In Kolotovka he drove off
the horses without making sure whose they were. He did not go himself
to the spot, but sent a young and clever fellow, Gerassim, to do the
stealing for him. The peasants only got to know of the theft at dawn;