When Wei Ran and Mesut were woken up by Ihor, the simple stove in the tent was still burning red, and it was still dark outside the tent. In the distance, they could still hear the howling wind above their heads.
They took off the thermal cover of the warm iron bucket and placed it next to the stove. The three of them each ate a roasted boiled potato and drank a large cup of pine needle tea, which was not very tasty, and then packed up the tent.
and sleighs, after once again covering up the traces of setting up camp, shouting at the reindeer who had eaten, drank, and rested enough, and continued on their way under the leadership of Mesut.
As the mountains were left behind them little by little, the two reindeer sleighs were once again enveloped by the violent storm and snow.
Walking in the sleigh behind, Wei Ran sat on a wooden box covered with fox skin. Between his legs, there was an iron bucket that slowly released heat. The outside was even wrapped in tents.
Half piece of windproof and waterproof canvas.
Thanks to these things, he is warm enough now, but in such weather, relying solely on the faint light provided by the kerosene lamp hanging on the shaft of the sleigh in front of him to travel is really unavoidable and frightening.
I don’t know where I will be dragged to by those reindeer whose night vision capabilities far exceed those of humans in the next second.
Compared with his intuitive fear of the unknown road ahead, the fluorescent pointer on the north compass dial that appeared from time to time in his hand always pointed firmly in the north-south direction.
After walking slowly through the dense forest for two or three hours, the sky finally became brighter, but the raging wind and snow did not stop. Instead, it became more intense and seemed to be more manic.
However, the good news is that in the dense forest directly in front of them, there is a frozen river that is only more than 20 meters wide and leads to an unknown place.
This is undoubtedly a discovery with both risks and rewards. Along this river, they can undoubtedly speed up, but if there is a labor camp or a gathering area directly in front of this river, they may be caught at any time.
Mesut, who was leading the way, just opened his notebook and looked at it, then decisively ordered the sleigh to leave the forest and set foot on the frozen river where the wind was raging.
The moment they left the forest, the intensity of the wind and snow suddenly increased to a higher level, but the three of them could clearly feel that the speed of the two sleds had also increased a lot.
After the initial nervousness, Mesut and Wei Ran also gradually relaxed. After running along this winding and narrow frozen river for an hour, not only did they not find any ruts along the way, both sides of the coast,
There are no man-made artifacts at all.
At the moment they were holding on, but the reindeer pulling the cart had no strength. So even though they were anxious, they could only temporarily leave the river and return to the forest where they could get some shelter from the cold wind. They found two pine trees next to each other.
The tent was set up again.
After the firewood ignited the firewood in the iron barrel, Ihor, who was awakened, also got enough pine needles for the reindeer to fill their bellies.
After hastily feeding each reindeer some concentrated feed and a large bucket of warm water, Ihor tied the salt bricks to the trunk and asked excitedly, "Are we not considered to have escaped now?"
"doesn't count"
Mesut and Wei Ran gave an answer in unison. The former even said while busy unloading his luggage, "This is just the beginning, we are far from being completely safe."
"Which direction should we escape next?" Ihor asked seemingly casually.
"Let's leave this forest alive first and then think about this matter." Mesut answered the other party's question noncommittally, and Ihor wisely did not ask any more questions.
While he was resting, Mesut cooked a large pot of fish soup that was not very tasty using a piece of frozen fish and scraps from the salt bricks. At the same time, he also refilled the iron bucket used for heating by the three of them.
After getting on the boiling water, Weiyan and Ihor took on the task of waxing the skateboards of the two sleds.
"Will anyone catch up?" In the warm tent, Ihor held a bowl of fish soup and asked what everyone was worried about.
"definitely will"
Mesut said while chewing the fish bone, "But this snowstorm that has not stopped yet will erase most of our traces. As long as we don't attract attention, the people sent by the camp will not find us so easily.
of."
"Who do you think the camp will send to find us?" Ihor continued to ask.
"Hunting team," Mesut replied with almost certainty, "Maybe there are Sergei and Panin, who knows? No matter who they are, as long as they are caught, we will all be dead."
"boom!"
Just when Ihor was about to continue saying something, there was a faint gunshot outside the tent!
Almost subconsciously, Ihor threw away the enamel stick filled with fish soup in his hand and picked up the dragoon rifle. Mesut, who also threw away the food, also took out a plate of bullets and handed it to the other party.
Before Ihor could press the bullet into the magazine, a series of rapid gunshots came from outside the tent again!
"Five shots in total"
Wei Ran put down the enamel rod and said, "This rate of fire is not like that of a bolt-action rifle. It is a little faster, but it is not a weapon like Sergei's or Panin's. It has a slower rate of fire than that gun."
Yihor looked at Wei Ran in surprise, and then looked at Mesut, who hesitated for a moment and said, "It doesn't sound like they are coming for us. Pack your things and let's go over and take a look."
Upon hearing this, Ihor immediately turned off the safety of his rifle, and he and Mesut picked up the fish meat that had just been scattered and stuffed it into their respective mouths.
Wei Ran, on the other hand, slowly finished the last piece of fish and drank the last mouthful of fish soup. Then he got up, dismantled the tent, and hitched the reindeer to the sleigh that had not yet been loaded with supplies.
"Ihor, you are here to guard a sleigh and all our supplies." Mesut said before setting off, "We cannot take risks with two vehicles."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Take the weapon" Ihor handed over the rifle in his hand.
"Need not"
Mesut first rejected the opponent's weapon, then pointed to the direction of the river not far away, "If there are enemies, we will lead them from that direction, and then you can just shoot. If they come back from other directions,
, it proves that he is not an enemy."
"I see"
As Ihor said, he had already hid on the side of the sleigh, placed his rifle on the sled, and aimed in the direction of the river.
Seeing this, Mesut got on the sleigh controlled by Weifan and rushed towards the direction where the gunshots had just been fired.
With nearly half of their load reduced and having just rested, the two reindeer pulling the cart worked extra hard, so the speed was naturally much faster.
After running less than two hundred meters in this direction, they had already reached the edge of the forest. Directly in front of them was a forest clearing that was probably two hundred meters wide.
At this time, on a piece of snow not far from them, four wolves were frantically biting two reindeer pulling a sleigh, as well as a hunter who was still waving a shotgun in resistance! There were several more wolves around them
Wolf carcass!
"Save him," Mesut said without thinking.
Upon hearing this, Wei Ran immediately shouted to the restless reindeer to turn around and go back, and took the rifle from Ihor's hand as quickly as possible.
After they rushed back to the edge of the clearing, Mesut waited for Weiran to stop the sleigh, and immediately aimed at a wolf in the distance that had knocked down the hunter and pulled the trigger!
"boom!"
After the clear gunshot, the wolf was shot in the shoulder blade, and fell on the hunter's body with its four legs stretched.
“Good marksmanship”
Wei Ran admired. Although the distance between the two sides was less than 100 meters at this time, still having the confidence to shoot at the wolf that knocked down the man on such a windy day requires absolute confidence in his marksmanship.
Just fine.
"boom!"
Although Mesut did not respond to Wei Ran's compliment, he immediately fired a second shot after loading the gun, knocking down another wolf that was biting the hunter to the ground.
After the two shots were fired, the two remaining wolves gave up on the reindeer whose throats had been bitten through, and bared their teeth and rushed towards the two of them.
"Calm down the reindeer!"
While Mesut was speaking, he had already jumped off the moving sled, and at the same time he loaded the gun and fired the third bullet.
"Bang!" After the gunshot, another wolf stopped with a cloud of blood mist exploding from its head.
It was only then that the remaining wolf seemed to realize that something was wrong, and turned around and ran towards the forest on the other side of the clearing.
"Bang!" As the fourth bullet was fired, the wolf also fell to the snow.
When Mesut sat back on the sleigh, Wei Ran immediately shook the reins and rushed towards the hunter who seemed to be unable to get up.
However, when they arrived, they found a large amount of blood on his neck and the flesh on his face had been bitten open.
Before the sleigh could stop, Mesut jumped down and knelt beside the wounded man, leaned over and put his ear to his mouth, and at the same time covered the bite wound on his neck with his hands.
But soon, he straightened up and shook his head towards Wei Ran, "He is already dead. We are too late."
Hearing this, Wei Ran nodded silently, then bent down and picked up a M1895 lever-action rifle produced by Winchester that was buried in the snow.
Although this long-obsolete weapon is an American product, it is not too much to appear on the soil of the Soviet Union. You must know that as early as the Tsarist Russia period before the Soviet Union, the Tsarist Russian army ordered a full 300,000 such rifles for use
To equip the army.
For this reason, in order to sell unsalable weapons, Winchester happily changed the caliber of this rifle to 7.62x54r required by Tsarist Russia, and it can also be loaded with the same magazine as the Mosin-Nagant rifle.
bomb.
Nowadays, not to mention that Tsarist Russia is long gone, even World War II has ended so many years ago, so it is reasonable for this outdated weapon to end up in remote Siberia.
While he picked up the weapon, Mesut also groped around on the old man's body and successfully found a bag of Mohe cigarettes and a dozen scattered bullets. In addition, he also found a device
A glass jug full of vodka and an old-fashioned copper key.
The two looked at each other and walked towards the two killed reindeer in the distance and the sleigh behind them.
In addition to a pair of skis, there were two wolf skins that seemed to have been peeled off not long ago and a box of animal traps of various sizes on the sled.
The two looked at each other, and Mesut burned all the bullets he had just found to Wei and said, "You are going to pick up Ihor and bring back the other car and all the reindeer."
"What do you want to do?" Wei Ran, who had already guessed the answer, took the bullet and asked.
Mesut pointed to the remaining ruts on the snow, "Let's see if we can follow the ruts to find this old hunter's home, send him back, and see what we can find along the way."
Hearing this, Wei Ran nodded and shouted to the reindeer to turn around and go back.
While the reindeer was walking back, Wei Ran's attention was focused on the lever-action rifle he had just picked up.
The lever of this gun was wrapped with a thick layer of cowhide, but compared to this leather case that was both decorative and practical, what really concerned him was the sight used on this weapon.
For this weapon from the Tsarist Russian era, the scale unit is not "meter", but "power", the measurement unit used by the Tsarist Russian Empire.
This creates a small problem. If you are not familiar with this unit of measurement, which was abandoned long ago even in 1951, it is not easy to use this weapon to hit the target accurately.
Fortunately, Wei Ran is a historian. Fortunately, he has an uncle named Mao Zi who is a history teacher, so he not only knows clearly that a large weapon is about 71 centimeters, but he also knows that this is definitely not an easy-to-use American lever rifle.
Its sight gauge resets to about 300 meters.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Of course, before he was sure who the gun would be used for, he was not going to share this little knowledge with Mesut or Ihor, who he disliked in the first place.
shared.
While thinking about this, he loaded the gun with five rounds of bullets. After Weiran rushed back to the temporary camp, he called on Ihor to help load the supplies onto the sleigh, and then connected the two sleighs with ropes.
Together, they took all the animals and slowly rushed to the clearing in the forest.
When he returned to the hunter's body and Mesut's body, Ihor immediately jumped out of the car and hurriedly took off a deer with a similar style to the one worn by Wei Ran and Mesut from the body.
The leather robe was put on himself.
While the hunter was changing clothes, Wei Ran and Mesut hitched the two reindeer to the hunter's sleigh. As for the hunter's body, they naturally did not intend to take it away.
"Who is this gun for?" Wei Ran asked proactively after finishing his work.
"Give it to Ihor"
Mesut thought for a while and made an arrangement, "This gun has better sustained firepower. The two of us are going to drive a sleigh, so it is most suitable to use it."
Hearing this, Wei Ran simply handed the lever-action shotgun to Ihor, but left the remaining dozen bullets in his pocket.
When the guy took the shotgun in his arms, Mesut drove the sleigh that had just been hitched and walked in front, chasing after him along the remaining traces on the snow. Wei Ran also shouted at the sleigh he was in charge of, leading the
The car was tied behind with a rope, and Ihor, who was sitting in the car, followed slowly.
After walking along the remaining traces on the snow for more than ten minutes, they returned to the river, and the faintly covered mark led to where they wanted to go.
To be cautious, the three sleds did not follow into the river. Instead, they hid in the dense forest on the river bank and continued to pursue the mark.
After walking so slowly for nearly two hours, the sled marks in the river had long since disappeared, but they found a small mountain on the high bank of the river at the intersection of another frozen river and this river.
wooden house.
The three of them looked at each other, and Mesut said, "You two wait here while I go over and take a look."
After saying that, he threw the reins of the sleigh to Ihor, then took off his rifle and handed it to Wei Ran, put on his skis, took the snowball fight, and walked towards the cabin with smoke still coming from the chimney.
On the other hand, Ihor, who was left behind, had already put on his snowshoes impatiently, as if he was ready to run over at any moment.
Less than 10 minutes later, Mesut returned to the two of them on his skis. "We were lucky. There was no one in the house, and there were only traces of one person's life."
Hearing this, Ihor, who was eager to find something, immediately left the two of them behind and ran over first.
Wei Ran and Mesut looked at each other and waited patiently for each other to take off their skis. Then they jointly shouted to the three sleighs and slowly left the forest and walked towards the cabin.
When they arrived at the door of the wooden house, Mesut took him to a wooden shed with a wooden fence and animal skin blankets hanging beside the wooden house, and drove all nine reindeer they owned inside.
There are four female reindeer and one male deer in the shed itself. Not only that, there are also a lot of fodder and firewood piled on one side of the shed.
After slowly feeding all the animals except Ihor with fodder, the two of them each carried some firewood and walked into the cabin that Ihor had already arrived at.
"Look what I found!"
As soon as the two of them entered the door, they saw Ihor holding a tanned bear skin in his hand, "There are a lot of animal skins in that storage room, at least dozens of them!"
"Is there anything to eat?" Mesut put the firewood in his hand beside the fireplace, added a few firewood to the coals and asked.
"Yes!" Ihor nodded, "There are a lot of sausages in the storage room, as well as a lot of wine and meat."
Hearing this, Mesut just nodded, "Bring in all our things and the sleigh."
Under his arrangement, the three of them carried the supplies on the three sleighs and the sleigh itself into the cabin. Then, Mesut asked Ihor to find all the animal skins, and
He himself found a set of tools that were only used by carpenters or blacksmiths.
"Victor, how about you come and get some food?" Mesut continued to arrange the work, "Ihor, come and help me."
"What do you want to eat?" Wei Ran asked.
“Just do something if you have something.”
While Mesut was speaking, he had already received a wolf skin from Ihor and started gesticulating on one of the sleighs. Looking at him, he seemed to be preparing to wrap a layer of animal skin on both sides of the sleigh.
.
This is a good idea. In this way, at least it will be warmer when you are on the road.
While thinking secretly, Wei Ran also found their enamel kettle, together with the kettle in the wooden house and the aluminum bucket pot that Mesut had bought before, filled it with snow outside, and placed it on the fireplace.
on the stove.
Taking this opportunity, he also took out the kerosene gas lamp, took off the Kiev 30 camera hanging on it, secretly took a photo of Mesut and Ihor in the room, and then inspected the wooden house with only one floor.
After a while.
In general, although this wooden house is not big, it has a lot of supplies stored inside.
Not to mention anything else, in the box under the bed, he found two maps of different scales and a compass, as well as two bags of flour, two bags of oats and a dozen large glass cans.
Some of these cans contain pickled pickles or tomatoes, some candied apples or unknown red jam. Others contain large chunks of red meat or simply fat made from unknown animals.
In the separately built storage room, in addition to pieces of animal skins hanging on wooden beams and half a barrel of about 100 liters of kerosene, there were also many sausages, dried deer legs, and a box of vodka and
Two large boxes of frozen potatoes, onions and carrots.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Of course, there are also a full set of tools for tanning leather, animal traps of various sizes and some well-hidden tools that seem to be used for gold panning and gold melting. So rich.
The material reserves are undoubtedly good news for the three people who fled in a hurry.
After some picking and picking, Wei Ran selected some ingredients, then fetched two enameled cast-iron pots hanging by the fireplace, then cut off a rib rack from the two reindeer carcasses, and stewed a large amount of them.
A pot of venison, and a big pot of thick oatmeal.
While he was frying sausages and sliced brown bread in a pan, Mesut, with the help of Ihor, wrapped a layer of warm wolf skin on the side rails and backrest of one of the sleighs.
It was wrapped with a layer of white canvas for camouflage, and even the bottom of the sleigh was covered with a thick bearskin.
"Isn't this too heavy?" Wei Ran asked.
"It won't"
Mesut temporarily stopped what he was doing and explained, "We now have three sleighs, and that sleigh is even bigger than our two. So we just need to teach Ihor how to command those reindeer.
It can hold more stuff.”
"I can definitely learn it," Ihor said confidently.
Seeing this, Wei Ran didn't say anything more. He just asked the three of them to get their own cutlery. They finished the extra meal in a hurry, and each of them drank a small glass of vodka.
After eating and drinking, Wei Ran also joined in the work of modifying the sleigh. It took the three of them almost an hour to wrap the other two sleighs with animal skins and canvas, and hastily sewed three wolf skins.
blanket.
After this transformation, the three sleighs also seemed much warmer. After Ihor put on another robe that he found in the rummaging, the three of them scraped the robes they found in the wooden house as quickly as possible.
Things that can be taken away.
Today, Weiran is still in charge of the original sleigh. In addition to a bag of oats, a box of sausages and a box of potato, onion and carrot mixture, the vehicle also contains two dried venison legs and meat in the box at the rear.
A fresh deer leg, several bottles of canned vegetables and fruits, a bottle of animal fat, and an enameled cast-iron pot that could only be tied to the armrest.
For this reason, he had to tie the skis and poles he prepared for himself to both sides of the sled with straps to make more space.
However, the two boxes of coking coal brought out from the labor camp were discarded in this wooden house by the three of them without hesitation. The reason was that the heat released when burning was too high, which would burn the iron bucket used as a stove.
It was burned out, and the difficulty of obtaining firewood along the way was so low that it was not worth carrying such a heavy thing on the road.
Although he did not intend to carry the coking coal with him, Wei Ran found an opportunity to secretly fill the metal book with British kettles full of vodka, and at the same time filled the iron bucket originally used as a soup pot with more important kerosene.
Apart from the fact that each of the other two has an extra weapon, there is not much difference in general. It's just that the meat in Ihor's car has been changed into a box of raw and frozen fish that he prefers to eat, and he takes extra
Just a few bottles of vodka.
Of course, although the compass Weiran found was assigned to Ihor by Mesut, the two maps were given to Weiran, the only one without a compass, for safekeeping.
Even in the wooden shed, the male reindeer who belonged to the hunter had a job. Although he did not have to pull the cart like his wives, he had two extra bundles of canvas for tents and a bag of concentrate on his shoulders.
After such busy work, the sky outside the wooden house became darker at this time, and the blizzard that had raged for two days seemed to be easing. But for the three people who fled, it was really not good news.
Before setting off, Wei Ran laid the two maps he found on the only table in the cabin. Now that the supplies were sufficient, it was time for Mesut to talk about his escape plan.
