3i8 THE CHANGING SEASONS 



had broken loose from their moorings in the snow, and 

 had wandered off up the Kureika in search of food. 

 When the peasants came to their senses during the 

 following afternoon they started off on snow-shoes to 

 follow the tracks, but whether they ever recovered the 

 animals or not I never heard. No wonder that a land 

 like Siberia, full of wealth of all sorts, remains poor for 

 want of labour to realise its resources. 



In the evening the Ostiak from the choom came with 

 his son down into the cabin, apparently to pay us a visit. 

 They sat down stolidly and partook of some tea which 

 we happened to have on the table. We were wondering 

 what could be the object of their visit, whether it might 

 not be one of ceremony to show a neighbourly feeling, 

 when the boy pulled out from under his fur coat a squirrel 

 and a hazel-grouse, which his father had shot during the 

 day. After we had examined these for some time, the 

 old man in his turn pulled out from his sleeve a live fox, 

 a few days old. It was sooty black, with a white tip at 

 the end of its tail. It was still blind, but we hoped it 

 might turn out to be a veritable black fox, so we decided 

 to buy it and try and bring it up by hand. We rigged 

 up an excellent bottle with the tube of my pocket-filter 

 and part of a kid-glove. We got Glinski to tell the 

 Ostiak to search for and find the hole where he got the 

 young fox and to lie in wait for the mother. This he 

 did, and on the next day he came again in triumph, 

 bringing the mother and five more young ones, exactly 

 like the one we had. The mother was red enough, but 

 we bought another young one to keep our other baby 

 company. It was only by dint of great perseverance 

 that we succeeded in bringing these two babies up with 

 the bottle, but as soon as they began to feed themselves 

 they grew fast. They were very quarrelsome in their 



