CHAPTER IX
TO THE SAYANS AND SAFETY
Dense virgin wood surrounded us. In the high, already yellow grass the trail wound hardly noticeable in among bushes and trees just beginning to drop their many colored leaves. It is the old, already forgotten Amyl pass road. Twenty-five years ago it carried the provisions, machinery and workers for the numerous, now abandoned, gold mines of the Amyl valley. The road now wound along the wide and rapid Amyl, then penetrated into the deep forest, guiding us round the swampy ground filled with those dangerous Siberian quagmires, through the dense bushes, across mountains and wide meadows. Our guide probably did not surmise our real intention and sometimes, apprehensively looking down at the ground, would say:
"Three riders on horses with shoes on have passed here. Perhaps they were soldiers."
His anxiety was terminated when he discovered that the tracks led off to one side and then returned to the trail.
"They did not proceed farther," he remarked, slyly smiling.
"That's too bad," we answered. "It would have been more lively to travel in company."
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