Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia

by G. A. Henty

"Well, Luka, there is nothing to do but to try and get at that venison. I have been thinking that it will be easiest to try from below; it is much quicker work chopping out the solid snow than it is trying to make a hole in that loose stuff at the surface. The tree was just about in a line with the front of the tent, wasn't it? and we hung the deer on a branch that stretched out nearly as far as the tent. I should say we hung it about half-way along that branch and not above twelve feet from the tent."

Luka agreed as to the position.

"Very well, then, as we know exactly the direction, and as the distance is but twelve feet, it ought not to take us very long to chop out a passage just big enough and high enough for one to crawl through. When we get near the place where we think it is, we must make the tunnel a good bit higher, for the bottom of the meat was quite five feet from the ground so that it should be well out of reach of the dogs. Now, will you go first or shall I?"

"I will begin," Luka said. "We must make the passage wide enough to push the snow past us as we get it down."

"Certainly we must, Luka. Make it pretty wide at the bottom, and make the top arched so as to stand the pressure from above."

It was easy enough work at first, but became more difficult every foot they advanced, as the one behind had to crawl backward each time with the snow that the one at work passed back to him. At last the tunnel was driven twelve feet long, and the last four feet it had been given an upward direction, by which means less snow had to be removed than would have been the case had the bottom remained level with the ground and the height been increased.

"We are a good twelve feet in now, Luka, and certainly high enough. Which way do you think we had better try?"

Luka replied by calling one of the dogs and taking it with him to the end of the tunnel. The animal at once began to snuff about eagerly, and then to scratch violently to the right.

"That will do," Luka said, pushing it back past him and taking its place. He had driven but a foot in the direction in which the dog was scratching when the hatchet struck something hard. It required some care to dig round the meat and make a hole large enough for Luka to stand up beside it and cut the cord by which it hung. The dogs yelped with joy when he dragged it back to the other end of the passage. The fire was made now in the passage under the roof they had made at the end of the first day's work, for outside the snow fell so fast that it damped the fire greatly, and as the smoke made its way out through the entrance it was no inconvenience to them below. A good-sized piece of raw meat was chopped off and given to each of the dogs. The ramrod was thrust through another large piece and held by Luka over the fire, and then Godfrey carried the rest of the joint outside and placed it in the fork of a tree.

"It smells good, Luka," he said as he returned to the fire; "I wish it would attract a bear."