coat between his legs and on his neck. He went at a walk.

‘What is it?’ Nikita asked again.

‘What is it? What is it?’ Vasili Andreevich mimicked him angrily. ‘There are no stakes to be seen!

We must have got off the road!’

‘Well, pull up then, and I’ll look for it,’ said Nikita, and jumping down lightly from the sledge and taking the whip from under the straw, he went off to the left from his own side of the sledge.

The snow was not deep that year, so that it was possible to walk anywhere, but still in places it was knee-deep and got into Nikita’s boots. He went about feeling the ground with his feet and the whip, but could not find the road anywhere.