'I expect you are going to Chachak?' my companion asked, when we stopped on the bank. 'I am spending the night there.' I took up some of the fisherman's things, and walked towards the yurta. I had known Chachak for some time past already. He was a queer man, who laughed at his own extravagances, and frequently even shocked the feeling of the neighbourhood. 'Chachak has made himself a cap of a whole wolf skin!' I had been told laughingly. 'Chachak has paid the merchants only two roubles for a brick of tea; "they would make too much profit by three roubles," he said!' 'What about the merchants? Did they give it to him?' 'Eh, why, his old woman gave it to them on the sly! Why! You don't know Chachak! He won't give three roubles;--he won't drink, and he won't give that!' Chachak had been famous in his youth as the best hunter in the district, and wonders were related of his prowess and skill. He preferred bear hunting to any other, and set out to it summer and winter with his spear and gun, killing in the open field or lair, just as it happened. He was as ready for such encounters as he was for cards. Only let him hear of a bear, and from that moment he had no peace until he had tracked and killed it. Many a time he had been invited to accompany hunters who had found a den with several bears. But burning with the fever for the chase, he had been unable to wait until morning, and had slipped away in the grey dawn with his faithful dog to hasten to the spot, where he was usually to be found, pale and splashed with the blood of the 'forest lords.' There was nothing left for his companions to do but for each to eat a portion of the hard heart and liver of the vanquished, and to drink a cup of blood, shouting the triumphant 'uch!' three times. All eyes would be upon Chachak, who would try to appear indifferent, although excited and feeling the just pride of a hero. Once, moreover, he had killed a bear with a tail, which, as everyone knows, is not a bear, but a devil. Had he not killed the 'icy demon,' who tracked people, carried off cattle, and whom neither bullet nor spear could touch? Chachak himself never spoke or boasted of his victories; he was always modest and reserved, as befits a man who possibly knows more than others. Since the accident which befell him during his last hunt, however, he had been completely changed. He had given up hunting and playing cards, become poor, and grown morose and strange:--he had lost his influence.