as we approached the telegraph station, we were met by a blondeyoung man who was in charge of the office, kanine by name. withsome little confusion he offered us a place in his house for thenight. when we entered the room, a tall, lanky man rose from thetable and indecisively walked toward us, looking very attentivelyat us the while.
"guests . . ." explained kanine. "they are going to khathyl.
private persons, strangers, foreigners . . .""a-h," drawled the stranger in a quiet, comprehending tone.
while we were untying our girdles and with difficulty getting outof our great mongolian coats, the tall man was animatedlywhispering something to our host. as we approached the table tosit down and rest, i overheard him say: "we are forced to postponeit," and saw kanine simply nod in answer.
several other people were seated at the table, among them theassistant of kanine, a tall blonde man with a white face, whotalked like a gatling gun about everything imaginable. he was halfcrazy and his semi-madness expressed itself when any loud talking,shouting or sudden sharp report led him to repeat the words of theone to whom he was talking at the time or to relate in amechanical, hurried manner stories of what was happening around himjust at this particular juncture. the wife of kanine, a pale,young, exhausted-looking woman with frightened eyes and a facedistorted by fear, was also there and near her a young girl offifteen with cropped hair and dressed like a man, as well as thetwo small sons of kanine. we made acquaintance with all of them.
the tall stranger called himself gorokoff, a russian colonist fromsamgaltai, and presented the short-haired girl as his sister.
kanine's wife looked at us with plainly discernible fear and saidnothing, evidently displeased over our being there. however, wehad no choice and consequently began drinking tea and eating ourbread and cold meat.
kanine told us that ever since the telegraph line had beendestroyed all his family and relatives had felt very keenly thepoverty and hardship that naturally followed. the bolsheviki didnot send him any salary from irkutsk, so that he was compelled toshift for himself as best he could. they cut and cured hay forsale to the russian colonists, handled private messages andmerchandise from khathyl to uliassutai and samgaltai, bought andsold cattle, hunted and in this manner managed to exist. gorokoffannounced that his commercial affairs compelled him to go tokhathyl and that he and his sister would be glad to join ourcaravan. he had a most unprepossessing, angry-looking face withcolorless eyes that always avoided those of the person with whom hewas speaking. during the conversation we asked kanine if therewere russian colonists near by, to which he answered with knittedbrow and a look of disgust on his face:
"there is one rich old man, bobroff, who lives a verst away fromour station; but i would not advise you to visit him. he is amiserly, inhospitable old fellow who does not like guests."during these words of her husband madame kanine dropped her eyesand contracted her shoulders in something resembling a shudder.
gorokoff and his sister smoked along indifferently. i very clearlyremarked all this as well as the hostile tone of kanine, theconfusion of his wife and the artificial indifference of gorokoff;and i determined to see the old colonist given such a bad name bykanine. in uliassutai i knew two bobroffs. i said to kanine thati had been asked to hand a letter personally to bobroff and, afterfinishing my tea, put on my overcoat and went out.
the house of bobroff stood in a deep sink in the mountains,surrounded by a high fence over which the low roofs of the housescould be seen. a light shone through the window. i knocked at thegate. a furious barking of dogs answered me and through the cracksof the fence i made out four huge black mongol dogs, showing theirteeth and growling as they rushed toward the gate. inside thecourt someone opened the door and called out: "who is there?"i answered that i was traveling through from uliassutai. the dogswere first caught and chained and i was then admitted by a man wholooked me over very carefully and inquiringly from head to foot. arevolver handle stuck out of his pocket. satisfied with hisobservations and learning that i knew his relatives, he warmlywelcomed me to the house and presented me to his wife, a dignifiedold woman, and to his beautiful little adopted daughter, a girl offive years. she had been found on the plain beside the dead bodyof her mother exhausted in her attempt to escape from thebolsheviki in siberia.
bobroff told me that the russian detachment of kazagrandi hadsucceeded in driving the red troops away from the kosogol and thatwe could consequently continue our trip to khathyl without danger.
"why did you not stop with me instead of with those brigands?"asked the old fellow.
i began to question him and received some very important news. itseemed that kanine was a bolshevik, the agent of the irkutsksoviet, and stationed here for purposes of observation. however,now he was rendered harmless, because the road between him andirkutsk was interrupted. still from biisk in the altai country hadjust come a very important commissar.
"gorokoff?" i asked.
"that's what he calls himself," replied the old fellow; "but i amalso from biisk and i know everyone there. his real name ispouzikoff and the short-haired girl with him is his mistress. heis the commissar of the 'cheka' and she is the agent of thisestablishment. last august the two of them shot with theirrevolvers seventy bound officers from kolchak's army. villainous,cowardly murderers! now they have come here for a reconnaissance.
they wanted to stay in my house but i knew them too well andrefused them place.""and you do not fear him?" i asked, remembering the different wordsand glances of these people as they sat at the table in thestation.
"no," answered the old man. "i know how to defend myself and myfamily and i have a protector too--my son, such a shot, a rider anda fighter as does not exist in all mongolia. i am very sorry thatyou will not make the acquaintance of my boy. he has gone off tothe herds and will return only tomorrow evening."we took most cordial leave of each other and i promised to stopwith him on my return.
"well, what yarns did bobroff tell you about us?" was the questionwith which kanine and gorokoff met me when i came back to thestation.
"nothing about you," i answered, "because he did not even want tospeak with me when he found out that i was staying in your house.
what is the trouble between you?" i asked of them, expressingcomplete astonishment on my face.
"it is an old score," growled gorokoff.
"a malicious old churl," kanine added in agreement, the while thefrightened, suffering-laden eyes of his wife again gave expressionto terrifying horror, as if she momentarily expected a deadly blow.
gorokoff began to pack his luggage in preparation for the journeywith us the following morning. we prepared our simple beds in anadjoining room and went to sleep. i whispered to my friend to keephis revolver handy for anything that might happen but he onlysmiled as he dragged his revolver and his ax from his coat to placethem under his pillow.
"this people at the outset seemed to me very suspicious," hewhispered. "they are cooking up something crooked. tomorrow ishall ride behind this gorokoff and shall prepare for him a veryfaithful one of my bullets, a little dum-dum."the mongols spent the night under their tent in the open courtbeside their camels, because they wanted to be near to feed them.
about seven o'clock we started. my friend took up his post as rearguard to our caravan, keeping all the time behind gorokoff, whowith his sister, both armed from tip to toe, rode splendid mounts.
"how have you kept your horses in such fine condition coming allthe way from samgaltai?" i inquired as i looked over their finebeasts.
when he answered that these belonged to his host, i realized thatkanine was not so poor as he made out; for any rich mongol wouldhave given him in exchange for one of these lovely animals enoughsheep to have kept his household in mutton for a whole year.
soon we came to a large swamp surrounded by dense brush, where iwas much astonished by seeing literally hundreds of white kuropatkaor partridges. out of the water rose a flock of duck with a madrush as we hove in sight. winter, cold driving wind, snow and wildducks! the mongol explained it to me thus:
"this swamp always remains warm and never freezes. the wild duckslive here the year round and the kuropatka too, finding fresh foodin the soft warm earth."as i was speaking with the mongol i noticed over the swamp a tongueof reddish-yellow flame. it flashed and disappeared at once butlater, on the farther edge, two further tongues ran upward. irealized that here was the real will-o'-the-wisp surrounded by somany thousands of legends and explained so simply by chemistry asmerely a flash of methane or swamp gas generated by the putrefyingof vegetable matter in the warm damp earth.
"here dwell the demons of adair, who are in perpetual war withthose of muren," explained the mongol.
"indeed," i thought, "if in prosaic europe in our days theinhabitants of our villages believe these flames to be some wildsorcery, then surely in the land of mystery they must be at leastthe evidences of war between the demons of two neighboring rivers!"after passing this swamp we made out far ahead of us a largemonastery. though this was some half mile off the road, thegorokoffs said they would ride over to it to make some purchases inthe chinese shops there. they quickly rode away, promising toovertake us shortly, but we did not see them again for a while.
they slipped away without leaving any trail but we met them laterin very unexpected circumstances of fatal portent for them. on ourpart we were highly satisfied that we were rid of them so soon and,after they were gone, i imparted to my friend the informationgleaned from bobroff the evening before.
