176 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
Uano beat me game after game, roaring with laughter 
at my defeat. Old Ustynia looked on with her wrinkled 
face and kindly twinkling eyes, taking the keenest 
interest in her lord’s success. Hyland played it better 
than I, but he was worsted too. 
July 7th.—It was a lovely sunny day, though the wind 
still blew keenly from the northward. 
Always most anxious to keep any undertakings made 
with these people, so that they might come to rely upon 
my word, I used every. effort to have all ready and 
stowed on the sleighs by half-past two, the hour they 
had fixed for moving off. 
But the reindeer had strayed away, and so we all 
stood tentless and choomless until six o’clock. And 
then we moved off. 
Among the herd was one little calf only born five days 
ago. Yet this small creature kept up most gallantly. 
Every now and then it dropped behind, and its mother 
anxiously waited, lowing, and charging the dogs, who 
tried to hurry it on. But just when we thought it was 
really so tired that we ought to lift it on to a sleigh, it 
pulled itself together and scampered off. 
We pulled up now and then for the deer to rest, and 
once Mekolka left us. He had picked up by the way a 
reindeer’s shed antler. This he bore away to a spot on 
the tundra, where was a circular, low tower, built entirely 
of reindeer’s horns. On this he placed the horn he bore, 
