If I meant to escape I had no time to lose. At any moment I was liable to be betrayed. My comrades among the colonists, as also the prisoners we had left at Irkoutsk, all knew who I was. Any of these, by turning traitor, could earn a considerable reward; even a slight indiscretion might reveal the secret, and the disclosure of my identity to the authorities would lead to my immediate arrest. It was therefore necessary to go at once; yet I could not start on so long a journey without money, and I did not possess a kopeck. So I sold my great coat, my woollen trousers, and my gloves, for a rouble and a half. It was not much. After this depletion of my wardrobe, my costume left a good deal to be desired. A regulation pelisse, a fur cap, thin trousers, and ordinary underclothing, did not afford much protection against the intense cold of a Siberian winter. But I dared not hesitate. On November 2d, at ten o'clock, before noon, I set out from the village. The morning though cold was clear and quiet. I made no attempt to hide my quality; it was evident to everybody. My yellow regulation pelisse and closely cropped head showed clearly enough that I was a vagabond. But this gave me little anxiety; I had observed that in Eastern Siberia vagabonds were neither arrested nor questioned. It would be the same with me, I thought, and in this expectation I was not disappointed. My journey as a vagabond lasted about eight days, and I suffered much both from hunger and cold. In the valleys—for the country was hilly—I often experienced a cold so intense that I thought my limbs would freeze as I walked. Sometimes the valley bottoms were filled with a thick fog. Going through one of those fogs was like taking a bath of pins and needles—so keen was the cold—and, though on these occasions I always ran, one of my knees became frost-bitten—my pelisse not being long enough to cover my legs, which were clothed only in light cotton pantaloons. I generally passed the night in the bath-room of some peasant after the manner of vagabonds, for nobody in Siberia, however poor, is without a vapor bath, the vapor being produced by pouring water on red-hot stones. One afternoon, just as night was closing in, I reached a village and sought a lodging. I had heard from the experienced vagabonds of the gang that it was always better to ask charity or help from the poor than from the well-to-do. Never, they said, when you are on the tramp, knock at the door of a rich man's house. Go rather to the most wretched cabin you can find. This rule, based on a wide experience and a profound truth—for the poor naturally receive more sympathy from the poor than from the well-to-do—I deemed it expedient to follow. At the end of the village in question I found a cabin of unprepossessing aspect, and, concluding that it was exactly what I wanted, I went in, making, as I entered, the sign of the cross before the picture of a saint, as is the custom in Russia. Then I greeted my hosts.