"Never mind, friend, they will heal up! Jump more lightly,--like this!" And Zhilín ran back, and to the left, up the mountain into the forest. Kostylín kept falling behind and groaning. Zhilín hushed him, and walked on. They got up the mountain, and there, indeed, was a forest. They went into the forest, and tore all the clothes they had against the thorns. They struck a path in the forest, and followed it. "Stop!" Hoofs were heard tramping on the path. They stopped to listen. It was the sound of a horse's hoofs. They started, and again it began to thud. They stopped, and it, too, stopped. Zhilín crawled up to it, and saw something standing in the light on the road. It was not exactly a horse, and again it was like a horse with something strange above it, and certainly not a man. He heard it snort. "What in the world is it?" Zhilín gave a light whistle, and it bolted away from the path, so that he could hear it crash through the woods: the branches broke off, as though a storm went through them. Kostylín fell down in fright. But Zhilín laughed and said: "That is a stag. Do you hear him break the branches with his horns? We are afraid of him, and he is afraid of us." They walked on. The Pleiades were beginning to settle,--it was not far from morning. They did not know whether they were going right, or not. Zhilín thought that that was the path over which they had taken him, and that he was about ten versts from his own people; still there were no certain signs, and, besides, in the night nothing could be made out. They came out on a clearing. Kostylín sat down, and said: "Do as you please, but I will not go any farther! My feet refuse to move." Zhilín begged him to go on. "No," he said, "I cannot walk on." Zhilín got angry, spit out in disgust, and scolded him. "Then I will go by myself,--good-bye!" Kostylín got up and walked on. They walked about four versts. The mist grew denser in the forest, and nothing could be seen in front of them, and the stars were quite dim. Suddenly they heard a horse tramping in front of them. They could hear the horse catch with its hoofs in the stones. Zhilín lay down on his belly, and put his ear to the ground to listen. "So it is, a rider is coming this way!" They ran off the road, sat down in the bushes, and waited. Zhilín crept up to the road, and saw a Tartar on horseback, driving a cow before him, and mumbling something to himself. The Tartar passed by them. Zhilín went back to Kostylín. "Well, with God's help, he is gone. Get up, and let us go!" Kostylín tried to get up, but fell down. "I cannot, upon my word, I cannot. I have no strength." The heavy, puffed-up man was in a perspiration, and as the cold mist in the forest went through him and his feet were all torn, he went all to pieces. Zhilín tried to get him up, but Kostylín cried: "Oh, it hurts!" Zhilín was frightened.