236 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



quietly, ' Put it down.' He obeyed like a lamb, putting- 

 it on the ground exactly where I pointed my finger. 

 Poor old chap ! he looked at me deprecatingly, as your 

 retriever will sometimes look. ' Uano good, very 

 good,' he said. But I felt I must give him a lesson 

 somehow. So I said, ' Bring some water.' He fetched 

 it in a wooden bowl, and then I made him pour it 

 into the cap. This done I swished it round, emptied it, 

 and said, ' Now put it on the boat again.' He did it all 

 so humbly and obediently that I fairly wanted to smack 

 him on the back with ' All right, old fellow, no bones 

 broken over that.' But I felt that this impression might 

 be of lasting use in case we should ever have to leave 

 our things unguarded. So he crept away to his choom. 



I was sorry, and instinctively knew I had lost ground. 

 If they once began to fear me they would retire into 

 themselves with all the old reserve they showed at first, 

 and then good-bye to my Samoyed studies. This came 

 home to me forcibly at breakfast-time. Instead of little 

 Wanka coming running down with ' Ortow Ahnglia ! ' 

 at the top of his voice, as he usually did, there comes old 

 Uano very solemnly, with a wooden bowl of goose and 

 salt and bread. This he offers to me as though I were 

 the orreat ood Num himself. I took it for this once. 



The heat beat us all. The men and women put off 

 their skins for the first time, and came out in red shirts 

 with the knife-belt round the waist, and the shirt tails 

 outside in Russian fashion. Young Yelisei had a green 



