(Who the devil can follow it?) But I used to ride up a hillock and start howling like the wolves, like this!’ He placed his hands before his mouth, and howled like a pack of wolves, all on one note. ‘The dogs would answer at once ... Well, go on — so you found them?’

‘We soon led them away! Nazarka was nearly caught by some Nogay women, he was!’

‘Caught indeed,’ Nazarka, who had just come back, said in an injured tone.

‘We rode off again, and again Girey lost his way and almost landed us among the sand-drifts. We thought we were just getting to the Terek but we were riding away from it all the time!’

‘You should have steered by the stars,’ said Daddy Eroshka.