‘Good man!’ the old man (who could not hit a flying bird) shouted, laughing.

Having picked up the pheasants they went on. Olenin, excited by the exercise and the praise, kept addressing remarks to the old man.

‘Stop! Come this way,’ the old man interrupted. ‘I noticed the track of deer here yesterday.’

After they had turned into the thicket and gone some three hundred paces they scrambled through into a glade overgrown with reeds and partly under water. Olenin failed to keep up with the old huntsman and presently Daddy Eroshka, some twenty paces in front, stooped down, nodding and beckoning with his arm. On coming up with him Olenin saw a man’s footprint to which the old man was pointing.