It would have been difficult to stand against the current--indeed, Michael’s horse could get no footing. He must therefore swim across the river, although it was rapid as a torrent. Even to attempt it showed Michael’s marvelous courage. The soldiers reached the bank, but hesitated to plunge in. The pendja-baschi seized his musket and took aim at Michael, whom he could see in the middle of the stream. The shot was fired, and Michael’s horse, struck in the side, was borne away by the current. His master, speedily disentangling himself from his stirrups, struck out boldly for the shore. In the midst of a hailstorm of balls he managed to reach the opposite side, and disappeared in the rushes. CHAPTER XVII THE RIVALS MICHAEL was in comparative safety, though his situation was still terrible. Now that the faithful animal who had so bravely borne him had met his death in the waters of the river, how was he to continue his journey? He was on foot, without provisions, in a country devastated by the invasion, overrun by the Emir’s scouts, and still at a considerable distance from the place he was striving to reach. “By Heaven, I will get there!” he exclaimed, in reply to all the reasons for faltering. “God will protect our sacred Russia.” Michael was out of reach of the Usbeck horsemen. They had not dared to pursue him through the river. Once more on solid ground Michael stopped to consider what he should do next. He wished to avoid Tomsk, now occupied by the Tartar troops. Nevertheless, he must reach some town, or at least a post-house, where he could procure a horse. A horse once found, he would throw himself out of the beaten track, and not again take to the Irkutsk road until in the neighborhood of Krasnoiarsk. From that place, if he were quick, he hoped to find the way still open, and he intended to go through the Lake Baikal provinces in a southeasterly direction. Michael began by going eastward. By following the course of the Obi two versts further, he reached a picturesque little town lying on a small hill. A few churches, with Byzantine cupolas colored green and gold, stood up against the gray sky. This is Kolyvan, where the officers and people employed at Kamsk and other towns take refuge during the summer from the unhealthy climate of the Baraba. According to the latest news obtained by the Czar’s courier, Kolyvan could not be yet in the hands of the invaders. The Tartar troops, divided into two columns, had marched to the left on Omsk, to the right on Tomsk, neglecting the intermediate country. Michael Strogoff’s plan was simply this--to reach Kolyvan before the arrival of the Usbeck horsemen, who would ascend the other bank of the Obi to the ferry. There he would procure clothes and a horse, and resume the road to Irkutsk across the southern steppe.