For four days they continued their journey through the forest, gathering much fruit, chiefly strawberries and raspberries, and eating sparingly of their bread. At night they lit fires, for the evenings were still cold, and slept soundly beside them. On the fifth morning Godfrey said, "We must turn south now, Luka, our bread won't last more than two days at the outside, and we must lay in a fresh supply. We have kept as near west as we could, and we know by the mountains that we cannot be far wrong, still it may take us some time to find a village." To Godfrey's satisfaction they arrived at the edge of the forest early in the afternoon. "We cannot be very far from Nertchinsk," he said. "We must be careful here, for there are lots of mines in the neighbourhood." After walking for another three or four hours several large buildings were seen among the trees in the valley, and these it was certain belonged to one or other of the mines. When it became dark they descended still farther, and kept down until they came upon a road. This they followed until about midnight they came upon a small village. They found, as they had hoped, bread and other provisions upon several of the window-sills, and thankfully stowing these away again struck off to the hills. "This is capital," Godfrey said, as after getting well into the forest they lighted a fire, threw themselves down beside it, and made a hearty meal. "If we could rely upon doing as well as this always I should not mind how long our journey lasted. It is glorious to be out in these woods after that close prison." The Tartar nodded. The closeness of the air in the prison never troubled him, but he was quite ready to agree to anything that Godfrey might say. "Good in summer," he said, "but not very good in winter." "No, I expect not; but we shall have to make the best of it, Luka, for it is quite certain that we shall have to spend the winter out somewhere." "We will make skin coats and keep ourselves warm," Luka said confidently. "Make a good hut." "Yes, that part of the thing seems simple enough," Godfrey agreed; "the difficulty will be in feeding ourselves. But we need not bother about that now. Well, we had better go off to sleep, Luka; we have been tramping fully eighteen hours, and I feel as tired as a dog." In a few minutes they were fast asleep, but they were on their feet again at daybreak and journeyed steadily for the next three days, always keeping near the edge of the forest. On the fourth day they saw a small farm-house lying not far from the edge of the wood. "Here is the place that we have been looking for for the last week," Godfrey said. "This is where we must manage to get clothes. The question is, how many men are there there? Not above two or three, I should say. But anyhow we must risk it." They waited until they saw lights in the cottage, and guessed that the family had all returned from their work.