234
THE STAROVERTSI.
towards a neighbouring hill; but if in the meanwhile the dogs have tree'd it, they are obliged to shoot it with the gun. More often, however, it takes refuge on an exposed hill-side, which the trappers immediately surround with their nets, propping these up on sticks, and ballasting the bottom with stones. The baffled animal now tries to escape observation by crouching underneath the net, whereupon its pursuers light a fire and smoke it out. It then throws itself against the top of the net, which it drags down from its slender supports, and entangles itself in the meshes. Fifteen men usually club together for this branch of industry, and have one general net about a thousand feet long, and standing four feet high from the ground. It is one of the most difficult as it is the most profitable of industries, every sable skin being worth on an average fifteen rubles. They hunt the fox and wolf in autumn on horseback with dogs. Another source of gain to the inhabitants is keeping tame deer, which are caught young and brought up by hand. By the third year the horns are a good size, and are then cut off, and sent to China for sale. The inhabitants of Bukhtarminsk, who sprang from forefathers belonging to no particular class in society, and coming from places widely apart, have no distinctive type. But the freedom of their existence, the nature of their occupations, and of the region they inhabit, and above all their inborn dispositions, impart to many a peculiarly
