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Alcide having asked him, on one occasion, how old he thought the girl,
"What girl?" he replied, quite seriously.

"Why, Nicholas Korpanoff's sister."

"Is she his sister?"

"No; his grandmother!" replied Alcide, angry at his indifference.
"What age should you consider her?"

"Had I been present at her birth I might have known."

Very few of the Siberian peasants were to be seen in the fields.
These peasants are remarkable for their pale, grave faces,
which a celebrated traveler has compared to those of the Castilians,
without the haughtiness of the latter. Here and there some villages
already deserted indicated the approach of the Tartar hordes.
The inhabitants, having driven off their flocks of sheep, their camels,
and their horses, were taking refuge in the plains of the north.
Some tribes of the wandering Kirghiz, who remained faithful,
had transported their tents beyond the Irtych, to escape the depredations
of the invaders.

Happily, post traveling was as yet uninterrupted; and telegraphic
communication could still be effected between places connected with
the wire. At each relay horses were to be had on the usual conditions.
At each telegraphic station the clerks transmitted messages delivered
to them, delaying for State dispatches alone.

Thus far, then, Michael's journey had been accomplished satisfactorily.
The courier of the Czar had in no way been impeded; and, if he could
only get on to Krasnoiarsk, which seemed the farthest point attained
by Feofar-Khan's Tartars, he knew that he could arrive at Irkutsk,
before them. The day after the two carriages had left Ekaterenburg they
reached the small town of Toulouguisk at seven o'clock in the morning,
having covered two hundred and twenty versts, no event worthy
of mention having occurred. The same evening, the 22d of July,
they arrived at Tioumen.

Tioumen, whose population is usually ten thousand inhabitants,
then contained double that number. This, the first industrial
town established by the Russians in Siberia, in which may
be seen a fine metal-refining factory and a bell foundry,
had never before presented such an animated appearance.
The correspondents immediately went off after news.
That brought by Siberian fugitives from the seat of war
was far from reassuring. They said, amongst other things,
that Feofar-Khan's army was rapidly approaching the valley
of the Ichim, and they confirmed the report that the Tartar
chief was soon to be joined by Colonel Ogareff, if he had not
been so already. Hence the conclusion was that operations
would be pushed in Eastern Siberia with the greatest activity.
However, the loyal Cossacks of the government of Tobolsk
were advancing by forced marches towards Tomsk, in the hope
of cutting off the Tartar columns.

At midnight the town of Novo-Saimsk was reached; and the travelers
now left behind them the country broken by tree-covered hills,
the last remains of the Urals.

Here began the regular Siberian steppe which extends to the neighborhood

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