A Saghálinian by Vladimir Korolenko

Having finished his tea, Vasíli seated himself before the fire. He could not go to bed as yet, for he had to wait for his horse to cool before he could feed it. The Yakút horse is not particularly heavy, but it has great powers of endurance. The natives use these horses to carry butter and other products to the remote mines, to the woods where the Tungus live, and to the distant Oochur,7 riding hundreds of versts through places where to obtain hay is out of the question. When they wish to camp, they shovel away the snow, make a fire, and drive the horses into the woods, where the intelligent creatures provide for themselves, nibbling last year's grass from under the snow, and in the morning are again ready for another long expedition. The animal has, however, one peculiarity. It cannot be fed immediately on arriving from a journey or just before starting, and frequently a well fed horse goes without food for twenty hours or more before starting on a journey.

Vasíli had to wait three hours, and, as I did not feel inclined to go to bed myself, we sat chatting at intervals. Vasíli -- or Bagyláï, as he was in the habit of calling himself -- now and then added wood to the fire. This was a habit of his, which he had acquired during the long evenings of the Yakút Winter.