CHAPTER XXII. FIRST ATTEMPT AT DOG-DRIVING - UNPREMEDITATED PROFANITY - A RUNAWAY - ARRIVAL AT GIZHIGA - HOSPITALITY OF THE ISPRAVNIK - PLANS FOR THE WINTER

We left Mikina early, November 23d, and started out upon another great snowy plain, where there was no vegetation whatever except a little wiry grass and a few meagre patches of trailing-pine.

Ever since leaving Lesnoi I had been studying attentively the art, or science, whichever it be, of dog-driving, with the fixed but unexpressed resolution that at some future time, when everything should be propitious, I would assume the control of my own team, and astonish Dodd and the natives with a display of my skill as a kaiur (kai-oor).