80 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY^ 
ward with all his weight. Urged by this noble example, our com- 
rades resume the work ; but they have not got half up, when al- 
ready the hamstrings of the strongest fail. They had stopped 
running, but they still trotted ; they now only walk. The time 
that has been lost is the reason why the shadow of the fugitive 
has completely vanished from the horizon, when they reach at last 
the summit of the ridge. 
The chief had said true that we should lose it. No means of 
finding the track except to retrace our steps, and to double the 
diagonal. Useless to think of it. Universal disappointment ; es- 
pecially, inconsolable desolation for the director of the enterprize, 
who banters his troop on their giving out so easily. But at last 
the mischief is done, we must submit to let the animal go. If 
we should try, however, to find his tracks again, suggests some 
voice of the group. Doubtless, replies the chief, but before com- 
ing to this we must get rid of this sledge, so heavy to run with, 
and set these men down in a safe place. It is so much the easier, 
that by one of those happy chances that we might truly be tempt- 
ed to attribute to calculation, the famous diagonal followed during 
the chase, has so obstinately tended to approach the straight line 
that separates the two huts, that it has at last fallen into it I A 
half gallop thirty minutes, three quarters of an hour at most, and 
the task is over. 
Thus speaks the sage Mentor, and his judicious proposition is 
welcomed without too many murmurs by the majority. They re- 
sume their route and at a quick pace, every one trying his best in 
order to be free the sooner ; space flies, thirty minutes pass, and 
even sixty. At last a thin pennon of dark smoke detaches itself 
upon the distant horizon from the immaculate white of the sur- 
face. It is the sign that betrays the dwelling of man, king of the 
earth. We arrive — we are at our journey’s end. I have seen 
civilized men, European guides of the Pyrenees and the Alps, 
who would not have extricated us from such a scrape without set- 
ting exaggerated prices upon their services. In Kamschatka, the 
hairy, four-footed guide, whose history I have just related, asks 
of you for his wages, only an oral sign of satisfaction. Never- 
