"What is the use of discussing the matter? Do as you please, but I will go with Demyán along the track. If we overtake him, so much is gained; if not,--I have nothing else to do to-day anyway, and it is not yet late." And so we did. My companions went to the sleigh, and back to the village, but Demyán and I took bread with us, and remained in the woods. When all had left us, Demyán and I examined our guns, tucked our fur coats over our belts, and followed the track. It was fine weather, chilly and calm. But walking on snow-shoes was a hard matter: the snow was deep and powdery. The snow had not settled in the forest, and, besides, fresh snow had fallen on the day before, so that the snow-shoes sunk half a foot in the snow, and in places even deeper. The bear track could be seen a distance away. We could see the way the bear had walked, for in spots he had fallen in the snow to his belly and had swept the snow aside. At first we walked in plain sight of the track, through a forest of large trees; then, when the track went into a small pine wood, Demyán stopped. "We must now give up the track," he said. "He will, no doubt, lie down here. He has been sitting on his haunches,--you can see it by the snow. Let us go away from the track, and make a circle around him. But we must walk softly and make no noise, not even cough, or we shall scare him." We went away from the track, to the left. We walked about five hundred steps and there we again saw the track before us. We again followed the track, and this took us to the road. We stopped on the road and began to look around, to see in what direction the bear had gone. Here and there on the road we could see the bear's paws with all the toes printed on the snow, while in others we could see the tracks of a peasant's bast shoes. He had, evidently, gone to the village. We walked along the road. Demyán said to me: "We need not watch the road; somewhere he will turn off the road, to the right or to the left,--we shall see in the snow. Somewhere he will turn off,--he will not go to the village." We walked thus about a mile along the road; suddenly we saw the track turn off from the road. We looked at it, and see the wonder! It was a bear's track, but leading not from the road to the woods, but from the woods to the road: the toes were turned to the road. I said: "That is another bear." Demyán looked at it, and thought awhile. "No," he said, "that is the same bear, only he has begun to cheat. He left the road backwards." We followed the track, and so it was. The bear had evidently walked about ten steps backwards from the road, until he got beyond a fir-tree, and then he had turned and gone on straight ahead. Demyán stopped, and said: "Now we shall certainly fall in with him. He has no place but this swamp to lie down in. Let us surround him."