The forest into which we had come was exceedingly old. I don't know
whether the Tartars had wandered over it, but Russian thieves or
Lithuanians, in disturbed times, might certainly have hidden in its
recesses. At a respectful distance from one another stood the mighty
pines with their slightly curved, massive, pale-yellow trunks. Between
them stood in single file others, rather younger. The ground was
covered with greenish moss, sprinkled all over with dead pine-needles;
blueberries grew in dense bushes; the strong perfume of the berries,
like the smell of musk, oppressed the breathing. The sun could not
pierce through the high network of the pine-branches; but it was
stiflingly hot in the forest all the same, and not dark; like big drops
of sweat the heavy, transparent resin stood out and slowly trickled
down the coarse bark of the trees. The still air, with no light or
shade in it, stung the face. Everything was silent; even our footsteps
were not audible; we walked on the moss as on a carpet. Yegor in
particular moved as silently as a shadow; even the brushwood did not
crackle under his feet. He walked without haste, from time to time
blowing a shrill note on a whistle; a woodcock soon answered back, and
before my eyes darted into a thick fir-tree. But in vain Yegor pointed
him out to me; however much I strained my eyes, I could not make him
out. Yegor had to take a shot at him. We came upon two coveys of
moorhens also. The cautious birds rose at a distance with an abrupt,
heavy sound. We succeeded, however, in killing three young ones.

At one _meidan_ [Footnote 1: _Meidan_ is the name given to a place
where tar has been made.--Author's Note.] Yegor suddenly stopped and
called me up.

'A bear has been trying to get water,' he observed, pointing to a
broad, fresh scratch, made in the very middle of a hole covered with