"Now we are coming to Mukhina," observed Jig-Leg, throwing away his cigarette, and spitting. "We must make a circuit round it at the back by the way of the outhouses, perhaps we may be able to pick up something. Then further on past the Sivtsova spinny to Kuznechikha.... From Kuznechikha we'll turn off towards Markvoka, and so home."
"That will be a walk of thirty versts," said Hopeful. "May it not be in vain!"
To the left of the road stood a wood uniformly dark and inhospitable, there was not a single patch of green amidst its naked branches to cheer the eye. On the outskirts of the wood a small, rough, shaggy little horse, with woefully fallen-in flanks was roaming, and its prominent ribs were as sharply denned as the hoops of a barrel. The chums stopped again and looked at it for a long time, watching how it slowly picked its way along, lowering its snout towards the ground, and cropping the herbage with its lips, carefully munching them with its worn-out yellow teeth.
"She's starved too!" observed Hopeful.
"Gee-gee!" cried Jig-Leg enticingly.
The horse looked at him, and shaking his head, negatively bent it earthwards again.
Hopeful explained the horse's wearisome movement: "He doesn't like you!" said he.
"Come! If we hand him over to the gipsies, they no doubt will give us seven roubles for her," observed Jig-Leg meditatively.
"No they won't! What could they do with her?"
"There's the hide!"