ABSTRACT
The night before Christmas Eve, Buffalo and I were sitting alone in our log-house, deep in thought. We had decided that if Krebs did not come within three days, one of us would try to ride to Irkutsk to make enquiries about him. Neither of us was very strong on Russian or Mongolian, and Krebs had taken with him the expedition’s only map of the district to the northward. We knew that it meant crossing snow-clad mountains and icy passes, and Krebs had told us that he had recorded temperatures as low as — 54° C. in those parts. We could not take any of our Buriats with us, since they were refugees from Russian jurisdiction and dared not enter Soviet territory. Buffalo was still lame from his frozen foot and new flakes of skin came off his toes daily, so it was I who had to prepare for the journey. I packed up the light outfit recommended by Yalserai, and he made from memory a sketch of the way I had to follow.
