Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia

by G. A. Henty

"The entrance will fill up again by to-morrow," Luka said, "and we shall have more trouble than ever to get out."

"We must provide against that, Luka; we must build a sort of roof over the entrance here, and then we shall only have to start from this point again. Let us set to work and chop down some poles at once."

After three hours' more work a cover was built over the entrance, and roofed with pine branches so as to prevent the snow from drifting in.

"Now, Luka, there is one more job, and unfortunately a long one, but we must do that. We must get the snow that we have packed in the shelter below out of the way, for if by any chance this passage fell through, we should have nowhere to pile the snow; besides, we may have another passage as deep as the present one to dig to-morrow, for the snow is drifting down in clouds. It has deepened a couple of feet since we began to make the roof over the entrance."

Luka, who was always ready to work, set to cheerfully, but the short twilight had faded into deep darkness before the work was completed.

"If we had had a couple of good shovels with us, Luka, we should have made short work of this," Godfrey said as they retired below into their tent. "We could do as much work in an hour as one can in five with these tools. It is heart-breaking to shovel out snow with a hatchet. I am as tired as a dog. This is harder work than the gold-mines at Kara by a long way."

"Yes," Luka said, "but there is no man with a gun."

"No, that makes a difference, Luka, this is free work and the other isn't; not that one can call it exactly free when we have no choice but to do it."

For another four days the snow continued to fall; but as the wind had dropped, and the snow no longer drifted, their work each morning was comparatively easy.

"I wish it would stop," Godfrey said, "for we begin to want food for the dogs; our stock of dried fish has been exhausted since we were shut up. There is half a deer hanging to a branch of that tree close to the tent, but it is eight or ten feet below the snow, and as we can't calculate the exact position now it would be a big job to try to get at it." There was, however, no change in the aspect of the weather on the following morning, and Luka announced that beyond the tea and a handful or two of flour there was nothing whatever for breakfast, while the dogs had fasted on the previous day.