"Well, shall we go on?" he proposed.
"By all means."
We rose from the ground warmed by tea and sunshine, and descended the bank to the current of the stream.
"And how do you manage to get food?" I asked Promtov ... "do you work?"
"Wo-o-rk? No, I am no great lover of that."
"But how then do you manage?"
"You shall see."
He was silent. Presently, after walking a few steps, he began whistling through his teeth some merry song. His eyes keenly and confidently swept the steppe, and he walked firmly like a man sure of his object.
I looked at him, and the desire to know with whom I had to deal burnt still more strongly within me.
The steppe surrounded us, desolate and quiet; above us shone the friendly sun of the south; we breathed with all our lungs the pure stimulating air, and went along in the direction where fragments of clouds jostled one another in a chaos of shapes and colours.