The third time
The last but one day. Nikolaj arrived in the morning in his jeep to the camp and rushed out with the list of people he asked about the storks. By the by, he knew nothing sure.
"Valerka?" he bended his shoulders. "We may try." We did reach the nest under Valerka's commandment. It was a stork nest! We saw white feathers on it - but it was empty.
"A marten's probably stolen the hatches…" Fanta said sadly. "What a bad luck!" "Some fisher lives in zemljanka (an underground shelter) near by the Ob river," Nikolaj said soberly. " And he's said to know about stoks' nests."
"Well, let's go!"
Valerka, Oleg went together with Franta and Nikolaj; the rest of us got in our car. "On we will drive only by the jeep," Nikolaj suggested after a few kilometers "And we'll surely call you by transmitter."
An hour later, Franta spoke: "The fisher says he often sees black eagles but he wondered why should we search their nest.. We'll try to walk through here - but I don't think there's a hope.."
Another hour passed by before Franta called us again. This time, he repeated these two words: "Found it! Found it!"
The next day - a few hours before our departure - we marked the third stork with a transmitter. Valerka found it.