H El MAWS DATCH. 109 



straight back to Duapse, before any further acci- 

 dents happened, alleging as their reasons that their 

 wives could not do without them any longer. As 

 a matter of fact, I presume their own appetite for 

 sport was satiated, and their appetite for vodka 

 Incoming daily more unendurably keen. As no 

 words or promises of mine could turn them from 

 their resolve I gave in to them, merely stipulating 

 that they should leave me one of their horses to 

 take me twelve versts further up the coast, to the 

 hut of a Tscherkess telegraph watcher, who lived by 

 that irrepressible mountain torrent the Golovinsk. 

 To this they agreed, and I moreover managed to 

 persuade the Cossack to accompany me to Golo- 

 vinsky, as another Cossack station at which he 

 could rest was not far from the wa teller's hut. So 

 we parted company, my men and I, and I don't 

 think I suffered any great loss from their defection. 

 My reasons for wishing to go to Golovinsky were, 

 that a report had come down the coast that in the 

 extensive chestnut forest round the watcher's hut 

 bears were more than usually numerous, the man 

 himself having recently killed two by shooting from 

 a platform in a tree during the night. 



