Thinking, dreaming, he at length fell into a doze. When he awoke, he noticed that the snow had ceased, and the sky was clearing. It was four o’clock. Rising stiff with cold, he went outside the hut and observed a streak of dull red on the horizon. "That must be the setting sun," he said to himself. "I wonder if, guiding myself by that, I could by and by reach a village and get food. Poor old horse! I hope you are not feeling as hungry and miserable as I am." He led the beast out and mounted. It was now freezing hard; the snow gave a metallic crunch under the hoofs as he rode away. Westward, towards the setting sun, must lie the sea; in that direction there was nothing to hope for. Northward were the Russians, southward the Japanese, but how far away? His course must be eastward, for sooner or later he must strike the high-road, and when once on the high-road he must in time reach a village. There would always be the risk of meeting Russians, but he could only chance that. Eastward, therefore, he set his horse. His advent in a Korean village would not be without danger; but one peril balanced another, and his plight could scarcely be more desperate. He had ridden, as he guessed, some three miles farther across the valley, when suddenly, in the dusk before him, he descried a cluster of huts. "At last!" he said to himself with a sigh of relief. Here at any rate were people; where people were, there must be food—and food, both for himself and his horse, must be obtained, whatever the risk. The hamlet might harbour a Cossack patrol; but at this stage Bob felt that it was no worse to fall into Russian hands than to die of famine on the snow-clad hills. On the other hand, if there were no Cossacks in the hamlet, his own appearance in Russian guise would be sufficient to procure him supplies. The Korean as a fighting man was not, Yamaguchi had told him, very formidable, so that even if the villagers proved hostile he felt that he could manage to hold his own.