Chapter 6

Although Vasili Andreevich felt quite warm in his two fur coats,
especially after struggling in the snow-drift, a cold shiver ran down
his back on realizing that he must really spend the night where
they were. To calm himself he sat down in the sledge and got out his
cigarettes and matches.

Nikita meanwhile unharnessed Mukhorty. He unstrapped the belly-band
and the back-band, took away the reins, loosened the collar-strap, and
removed the shaft-bow, talking to him all the time to encourage him.

'Now come out! come out!' he said, leading him clear of the shafts. 'Now
we'll tie you up here and I'll put down some straw and take off your
bridle. When you've had a bite you'll feel more cheerful.'

But Mukhorty was restless and evidently not comforted by Nikita's
remarks. He stepped now on one foot and now on another, and pressed
close against the sledge, turning his back to the wind and rubbing his
head on Nikita's sleeve. Then, as if not to pain Nikita by refusing his
offer of the straw he put before him, he hurriedly snatched a wisp out
of the sledge, but immediately decided that it was now no time to think
of straw and threw it down, and the wind instantly scattered it, carried
it away, and covered it with snow.

'Now we will set up a signal,' said Nikita, and turning the front of the
sledge to the wind he tied the shafts together with a strap and set them
up on end in front of the sledge. 'There now, when the snow covers us
up, good folk will see the shafts and dig us out,' he said, slapping his
mittens together and putting them on. 'That's what the old folk taught
us!'

Vasili Andreevich meanwhile had unfastened his coat, and holding its
skirts up for shelter, struck one sulphur match after another on the
steel box. But his hands trembled, and one match after another either
did not kindle or was blown out by the wind just as he was lifting it to
the cigarette. At last a match did burn up, and its flame lit up for
a moment the fur of his coat, his hand with the gold ring on the bent
forefinger, and the snow-sprinkled oat-straw that stuck out from under
the drugget. The cigarette lighted, he eagerly took a whiff or two,
inhaled the smoke, let it out through his moustache, and would have
inhaled again, but the wind tore off the burning tobacco and whirled it
away as it had done the straw.

But even these few puffs had cheered him.

'If we must spend the night here, we must!' he said with decision. 'Wait
a bit, I'll arrange a flag as well,' he added, picking up the kerchief
which he had thrown down in the sledge after taking it from round his
collar, and drawing off his gloves and standing up on the front of
the sledge and stretching himself to reach the strap, he tied the