But it was not really so. The forest was still with a death-like stillness. The dark trees like sentinels stood marshalled in sombre array on either side of the avenue. Around us, above, and below, all was silence—the mystic, beautiful winter silence of the sleeping northern forest.
Like a fish, my companion darted suddenly from our hiding-place, bending low, and in two strides had crossed the open space and vanished in the shrubbery. I followed, stealing one rapid glance up and down as I crossed the line, to see nothing but two dark walls of trees on either hand, separated by the grey carpet of snow. Another stride, and I, too, was in Russia, buried in the thick shrubbery.
A Russian Village
I found my guide sitting in the snow, adjusting his ski-straps.
“If we come upon nobody in the next quarter-mile,” he whispered, “we are all right till daybreak.”
“But our ski-tracks?” I queried; “may they not be followed?”
“Nobody will follow the way we are going.”
The next quarter-mile lay along a rough track skirting the Russian side of the frontier. Progress was difficult because the undergrowth was thick and we had to stoop beneath overhanging branches. Every twenty paces or so we stopped to listen—but only to the silence.
At last we came out on the borders of what seemed like a great lake. My companion explained that it was a morass and that we should ski straight across it, due south, making the best speed we might. Travelling now was like finding a level path after hard rocky climbing. My guide sailed away at so round a pace that although I used his tracks I could not keep up. By the time I had crossed the open morass he had already long disappeared in the woods. I noticed that although he had said no one would follow us, he did not like the open places.