This is Kolyvan, where the officers and people employed at Kamsk and other towns take refuge during the summer from the unhealthy climate of the Baraba.

According to the latest news obtained by the Czar's courier, Kolyvan could not be yet in the hands of the invaders.

The Tartar troops, divided into two columns, had marched to the left on Omsk, to the right on Tomsk, neglecting the intermediate country.
Michael Strogoff's plan was simply this--to reach Kolyvan before the arrival of the Usbeck horsemen, who would ascend the other bank of the Obi to the ferry.

There he would procure clothes and a horse, and resume the road to Irkutsk across the southern steppe.
It was now three o'clock in the morning.

The neighborhood of Kolyvan was very still, and appeared to have been totally abandoned.