He walked about for a long time, now disappearing and now reappearing,
and finally he came back.

'There is no road here. There may be farther on,' he said, getting into
the sledge.

It was already growing dark. The snow-storm had not increased but had
also not subsided.

'If we could only hear those peasants!' said Vasili Andreevich.

'Well they haven't caught us up. We must have gone far astray. Or maybe
they have lost their way too.'

'Where are we to go then?' asked Vasili Andreevich.

'Why, we must let the horse take its own way,' said Nikita. 'He will
take us right. Let me have the reins.'

Vasili Andreevich gave him the reins, the more willingly because his
hands were beginning to feel frozen in his thick gloves.

Nikita took the reins, but only held them, trying not to shake them
and rejoicing at his favourite's sagacity. And indeed the clever horse,
turning first one ear and then the other now to one side and then to the
other, began to wheel round.

'The one thing he can't do is to talk,' Nikita kept saying. 'See what he
is doing! Go on, go on! You know best. That's it, that's it!'