Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/61

Rh installed there, I went at once to the task of finding the necessary technical assistants and succeeded in locating two among the staff of the Chinese Eastern Railway. One was named Kazik and the other Samsonoff, both of them from the mining district of the Urals and acquainted almost from childhood with the work of charcoal burning. They were both young men but of quite opposite characteristics. Kazik was almost a giant. I do not recall ever having seen anyone with such enormous shoulders and breast, with the exception of my companion in Mongolia, the agronome whom I described in the account of my journeyings through that land. In spite of his size, Kazik was spare and his body seemed but a bundle of pliant leather thongs. His movements were graceful and quick; his blue eyes snapped with vivacity and courage; while his face was nearly always cheery and frank. In contrast, Samsonoff was short, with light, curly hair, a gentle, melancholy expression and big, dreamy brown eyes. Both of them at once attracted me, so that I immediately requested the Railway Administration to put them at my disposal.

On the very next day we all went together in my service car to Udzimi. On the way I learned that Kazik was an enthusiastic hunter; and, as I had already peered into the thick Manchurian taiga, I promised myself many hunting pleasures. In such a wild country a good companion is not only a very agreeable, but a quite indispensable, adjunct. From my chats with them I gathered that Kazik and Samsonoff had been acquainted for a long time and had lived in close and amicable relations. After my assistants had become a little less formal toward me, Samsonoff took me aside one day and confided to me:

"Sir, I have been married for a year and it will be