Little Peter fell to his knees beside his father, who had been rudely rolled upon his back by the Cossack with the saber. This Cossack searched hastily through the pockets of the greatcoat of Gorekin. Peter, screaming in terror, supposed that all this was being done to help his father. The Cossack found the curved leather-knife of Gorekin in a pocket of the dying man’s coat, and flung the knife upon the ground. “He held this knife in his hand!” cried the Cossack. “It is the knife with which he would have killed the Governor!” Peter could not realize yet the disaster which had come to him and his father. He knew only that the one human being who loved him, and whom he loved above everything in the world, was hurt and bleeding. The slowly reddening snow beside his father gave the boy a vague idea of a wound which might in time be cured. And it might not be real at all, this tragic morning, but a dream. Peter saw about him the black circle of boots like the trees of a forest; he saw the print of nails in the hard snow; he noted a small round stone close by his father’s head—the world appeared to be full of trifling things, yet suddenly all trifles were invested with terror. He prayed even as he screamed, that he might wake to find his father reading from the new almanac beside the fire in their little hut. “Little father! Little father!” he cried in his agony. The bootmaker coughed harshly. “He tried to kill the Governor,” said a voice. “There lies the knife—and I ran him through with my saber.” Peter recognized the voice as that of the Cossack who had struck down his father. “Little son—” gasped Gorekin, his dimming eyes on Peter, and his hand moving slowly toward the boy. “Thou whom I love!” cried Peter, “come quickly for the man who has medicine and can cure you! Come to the watch-fixer who has the charms and the herbs!” “God’s blessing on you—I go—to meet—the—dead!” whispered Gorekin. “You are not to die!” cried Peter, and flung himself down upon his father and kissed him. Then he sat back on his heels, moaning wildly as he saw his father’s face graying to the color of the trampled snow. “I shall kill Kirsakoff!” Peter shouted. “I shall kill—the Governor——!” “Pray!” said his father weakly. “Pray to God for—power and—” but he could say no more, and making an effort to cross himself with both hands he died, staring up into the leaden sky. “He is dead,” said a voice. “Take the boy to the prison. It is the order of the Governor.” And Peter, sobbing and kicking out against the soldiers who grasped him and dragged him away, left his father lying in the snow before the post-house. The soldiers dragged Peter up the Sofistkaya. His eyes clung to the mail bags being carried into the post-house, and though he was crying bitterly, he wondered if the almanacs had come from Moscow after all.