Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/335

Rh or yamstchik, had two sledges to look out for; and I have sometimes seen a caravan of five hundred of these sledges, which thus counted two hundred and fifty men. The life was hard, for we travelled day and night, sleeping on the sledges and freezing to the marrow during the terrible cold of the blizzards and the raging northwest winds. We stopped from time to time to rest and feed the horses and took turns in guarding the caravan, as we carried valuable cargo and knew that there were always bands of men along the route who valued it as highly as we did.

"The peasants of the villages along the way followed an occupation which they euphemistically called 'the white one.' Clad all in white, these countrymen would lie in the snow, where their disguise was complete, and during the night, when a caravan stopped to rest, they would crawl up and cut the ropes holding the tea and silk on the sledges. When the drivers started again, sleepy and not knowing that their loads had been tampered with, they pushed forward as usual, until some following sleigh discovered that one ahead was sowing a very lucrative crop for these peasants along the way."

Suvoroff lighted a cigarette and was lost for a while in thought; then he continued his tale.

"I must go back to earlier days. Besides myself my parents had a second son, Gregory, who enlisted in the army but did not come back after his term of service was finished. We learned later that he had married and was living in the Transbaikal.

"On one of my trips I was bringing up the rear of the caravan. As the night was dark, I kept continually looking back, for I was afraid of a robber attack. Suddenly I heard a sound and, looking round, saw a white shadow rise up behind my last sledge and disappear at once.