oom, a tall, lanky man rose from the table and indecisively
walked toward us, looking very attentively at 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 out of our
great Mongolian coats, the tall man was animatedly whispering something
to our host. As we approached the table to sit down and rest, I
overheard him say: "We are forced to postpone it," and saw Kanine simply
nod in answer.

Several other people were seated at the table, among them the assistant
of Kanine, a tall blonde man with a white face, who talked like a
Gatling gun about everything imaginable. He was half crazy and his
semi-madness expressed itself when any loud talking, shouting or sudden
sharp report led him to repeat the words of the one to whom he was
talking at the time or to relate in a mechanical, hurried manner stories
of what was happening around him just at this particular juncture. The
wife of Kanine, a pale, young, exhausted-looking woman with frightened
eyes and a face distorted by fear, was also there and near her a young
girl of fifteen with cropped hair and dressed like a man, as well as
the two small sons of Kanine. We made acquaintance with all of them.
The tall stranger called himself Gorokoff, a Russian colonist from
Samgaltai, and presented the short-haired girl as his sister. Kanine's
wife looked at us with plainly discernible fear and said nothing,
evidently displeased over our being there. However, we had no choice and
consequently began drinking tea and eating our bread and cold meat.

Kanine told us that ever since the telegraph line had been destroyed all
his family and relatives had felt very keenly the poverty and hardship
that naturally followed. The Bolsheviki did not send him any salary from
Irkutsk, so that he was compelled to shift for himself as best he
could. They cut and cured hay for sale to the Russian colonists,
handled private messages and merchandise from Khathyl to Uliassutai and
Samgaltai, bought and sold cattle, hunted and in this manner managed to
exist. Gorokoff announced that his commercial affairs compelled him
to go to Khathyl and that he and his sister would be glad to join
our caravan. He had a most unprepossessing, angry-looking face with
colorless eyes that always avoided those of the person with who