86 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
We rose at eight for breakfast, and then a strange 
thing happened. 
We were sitting at breakfast when on the bank at 
the farthest point of this first reach of the river, distant 
barely 500 yards, there came into view, if our eyes did 
not deceive us, several persons moving down to the 
river. Presently they stopped, and one man sat on a 
stone and waited so. 
It was an anxious moment. 
It seemed to me that these natives, having sighted 
the tent, were suspicious and hesitating. They pro- 
bably had their reindeer just behind the bank. What 
if, filled with alarm on seeing us approach, they should 
whip up and be off! 
Were we to be cheated again? 
I went for the whisky bottle, telling Hyland that 
the only chance would be to walk slowly along the 
cliff towards them and without our guns. For I 
thought that so, having time for a good look at 
us and judging us peaceable, they might wait our 
arrival in some confidence, being probably armed them- 
selves. And the whisky, I knew, would seal our over- 
tures. 
We started. 
We had not gone ten yards when something seemed 
to change. I raised my glass and took ‘another long 
particular look.’ And what do you think I saw? 
Five bernacle geese. 
