Ivan awoke from his swoon. "Water! Water!" he gasped hoarsely. Before his eyes there danced fiery sparks: his breast felt terribly constricted. He eagerly drained the cup which the child reached to him; then he rose painfully and limped, leaning on his gun, to the hut, where, covered up warmly by Anjuta, he fell into a death-like slumber. He awoke, feeling tired and sick. There was a buzzing in his head; one leg was badly injured, and the bear's claw had left deep marks on his back. "We can't do anything to-day with the hole, Anjuta! If I remain quiet to-day, perhaps we can to-morrow." But the next day came, and a second, and a third, and there was no possibility of thinking of work. Not till a week had passed could he rise from his bed. When he came out of the hurt, he uttered a cry of surprise. The red and yellow leaves still hung on the trees, but a thin coverlet of snow lay over the whole face of the clearing. In the air the snow-flakes crossed and whirled in white confusion. Winter had brought out its corpse-cloth overnight. X All that remained to the convict of his brief summer happiness was Anjuta. As he lay on his bed of soft skins his burning eyes never left the child. The unfortunate man suffered severely. In the first shock he had not been able to judge distinctly how seriously the bear had injured him. The deep wound in his shoulder would not heal, although Anjuta had learnt how to wash and bandage it daily. It was soon accompanied by a fever. Meanwhile, time went on remorselessly; the winter regularly settled in, and the rude hut no longer afforded sufficient shelter. One day Ivan dragged himself on all fours into the open, and with endless trouble began to plaster the hut outside with earth. Within, he dug a hollow in the ground, and with the help of a pole made a hole in the roof, which could be closed with a small board. The fire-place was then ready. "Listen, little girl." In his illness the old man had become especially gentle towards the orphan. "Now you must look after me. Be my little housekeeper. Light the fire and boil the water. Thank God we have enough bread and wood and meal. Put a couple of handfuls into the soup with sliced potatoes; it will be quite tasty. Later on we will catch hares. Peasants are not allowed to eat hares, but we are foresters, and that has nothing to do with us." So Anjuta lit the fire, cooked the soup, brought fresh wood from the wood-pile. When the fire had burnt out, she clambered on the roof and closed the opening--the "chimney," as Ivan called it--so that it remained comfortably warm in the hut. "Is that right, Grandfather?" she laughed. "You are my treasure, my little dove," the old man said as he lay on his skins. "Without you it would be all over with me."