It was about two o'clock when Maciek was ready to start. The Soltys hinted that the child had better be left behind, but his wife was so angry at the suggestion that he desisted. So Maciek tied her up again in the old bits of clothing and went his way. He easily found Kasztan's tracks on the highroad and followed them for an hour, when he thought that he must be nearing the thieves' quarters, for the tracks had been covered up, and finally led into the ravines. The frost was pinching harder and harder, but the breathless man scarcely noticed the cold. From time to time clouds flew over the sky and snow drifted along the ground in gusts; Maciek searched all the more eagerly, so as not to miss the track before it should be covered with fresh drifts. On and on he walked, never even noticing that darkness was coming on and the snow was falling faster. Now and then he would sit down for a moment, too tired to go on, but he jumped up again, for he fancied he heard Kasztan neighing. Probably it was his aching head that produced these sounds, but at last they became so loud that he left the track and cut right across the hill in the direction from which they seemed to proceed. With his last remaining strength he struggled with the bushes, fell, scrambled to his feet, and continued. Then the neighing ceased and he found that he was in the ravines, knee-deep in snow, and night-was falling. With difficulty he dragged himself on to a knoll to see where he was. He could see nothing but snow--snow to the right and to the left, here and there intercepted by bushes, the last streak of light had faded from the sky. He tried to descend; in one place the slope was too steep, in another there were too many bushes; at last he decided on an easier place and put his stick forward; it gave way, and he fell after it for several yards. It was fortunate that the snow lay waist-deep in this spot. The frightened child began its low sobbing, it had always been too weak to cry heartily. Fear was knocking at Maciek's heart. 'Surely, I can't have lost my way?' he thought, 'these are our ravines that I know so well, yet I don't see my way out of them.' He started walking again, alternately in low and deep snow, until he came upon a place that had been trodden down recently. He knelt down and felt the tracks with his hands. They were his own footprints. 'Dear me! I've been going round in a circle,' he muttered, and tried another corridor of ravines which presently led him to the place where he had slid down the hill. He fancied he heard murmurings overhead and looked up, but it was only the rustling of the bushes. The wind had sprung up on the hillside and was driving before it clouds of fine snow which stung his face and hands like gnats.