The brave animal could no longer have continued the journey.

At Elamsk, as indeed elsewhere, there existed no means of transport,--for the same reasons as at the previous villages, neither carriages nor horses were to be had.
Michael Strogoff resigned himself therefore to pass the night at Elamsk, to give his horse twelve hours' rest.

He recalled the instructions which had been given to him at Moscow--to cross Siberia incognito, to arrive at Irkutsk, but not to sacrifice success to the rapidity of the journey; and consequently it was necessary that he should husband the sole means of transport which remained to him.
On the morrow, Michael Strogoff left Elamsk at the moment when the first Tartar scouts were signaled ten versts behind upon the road to the Baraba, and he plunged again into the swampy region.

The road was level, which made it easy, but very tortuous, and therefore long.

It was impossible, moreover, to leave it, and to strike a straight line across that impassable network of pools and bogs.
On the next day, the 1st of August, eighty miles farther, Michael Strogoff arrived at midday at the town of Spaskoe, and at two o'clock he halted at Pokrowskoe.