RE-CROSSING 



137 



a sack or two, and piles of reindeer skins. This was 

 about all the furniture. 



Mrs. Uano began bread-making about ten o'clock. 

 They thought, no doubt, that I was asleep, but I was not. 

 I had been awake at least as soon as they were, and 

 watching every point like a terrier at a rat's hole. Only 

 I lay very still and just looked through my eyelashes. 



Tierrtso pounded up the flour, which was caked, for 

 it had been wet. Tierrtso w r as about eleven years old. 

 She had, like the others, a Russian name, Zornka, but 

 as she was Uano's fourth and youngest daughter ; they 



Lki aJL $a~*syt) Kji^j^ei i£ia<- one. cJusel-£Jj"J- 



always called her Tierrtso, for ' tierrt ' in the Samoyed 

 means four. The eldest daughter was married and 

 away on the mainland ; we were not to see her till 

 much later. 



Anka, the second girl, went out and cut up the drift- 

 wood for the fire ; while the eldest unmarried daughter, 

 named Ustynia after her mother, busied herself about 

 the fire. 



Katrina, his son Philipo's wife, as Uano told us, and 

 Niab-kutni, her little girl, did nothing on this first morning, 



