"Oh," he said, "we have made a mistake,—we have borne too much to the right. Here is a village,—I saw it from the mountain; we must go back and to the left, and up the mountain. There must be a forest here."
But Kostylín said:
"Wait at least awhile! Let me rest: my feet are all blood-stained."
"Never mind, friend, they will heal up! Jump more lightly,—like this!"
And Zhilín ran back, and to the left, up the mountain into the forest. Kostylín kept falling behind and groaning. Zhilín hushed him, and walked on.
They got up the mountain, and there, indeed, was a forest. They went into the forest, and tore all the clothes they had against the thorns. They struck a path in the forest, and followed it.
"Stop!" Hoofs were heard tramping on the path. They stopped to listen. It was the sound of a horse's hoofs. They started, and again it began to thud. They stopped, and it, too, stopped. Zhilín crawled up to it, and saw something standing in the light on the road. It was not exactly a horse, and again it was like a horse with something strange above it, and certainly not a man. He heard it snort. "What in the world is it?" Zhilín gave a light whistle, and it bolted away from the path, so that he could hear it crash through the woods: the branches broke off, as though a storm went through them.
Kostylín fell down in fright. But Zhilín laughed and said:
"That is a stag. Do you hear him break the branches with his horns? We are afraid of him, and he is afraid of us."