"Make haste now and get thy supper," said Stepan. "Thou art keeping these children awake, and me too; thou hast forgotten that I must make an early start."
Gavril grunted and took a long draught of coffee.
"This coffee of thine has a queer taste, Stepan," he said. "What hast thou done to it?"
"What should I do?" replied the other coolly. "Perhaps it was made in too much of a hurry. People who come in at midnight can hardly, in the backwoods, expect a hotel supper served."
"Well, anyhow, it is hot, and it warms me," said Gavril.
"Yes, and there is condensed milk in it, so it is nourishing. Drink it up and lie down, and I will put out the light."
Gavril said no more. He ate his bread and cheese, and two salted cucumbers, and drank up the coffee to the last drop. Then, overcome with weariness, apparently, he rolled himself up in his sheepskin, lay down on the pile of straw in a corner, and was snoring loudly in a few minutes.
Stepan remained quite quiet for about a quarter of an hour, glancing at Gavril at intervals. At last, assured of his sound slumber, he went to and fro in the hut, collecting the things that would be required for the journey of the boys and himself. Bread, cheese, a small kettle and tin of tea, and a few lumps of sugar, an axe, and his own revolver. The food he divided into two portions, one for himself, one for the children, all but the parcel of tea and sugar, which he gave to them just as it was.
"You may get up now," he whispered to Alf and Bert, as his preparations neared completion; "get up and put on your furs; and you," he added to Alf, "see to the pony. No," he said, with a smile, as the lad's eyes turned with fear to the snoring Gavril; "you need have no misgiving. He will not wake for hours. I gave him a decoction of poppy-heads in his coffee, on purpose to quiet him, so that we could get away."
"Then why should we not take our own sledge and horse as well as the pony?" said Alf. "Gavril stole them from us; we shall but be taking back our own."