CHAPTER II.
AMONG THE COSSACKS.
McKay was in His tent next morning finishing dressing when his servant brought him a piece of crumpled paper and said there was a messenger waiting to see him. The paper was the pass given the day before to Valetta Joe; its bearer was a nondescript-looking ruffian, in a long shaggy cloak of camel's hair, whose open throat and bare legs hinted at a great scantiness of wardrobe beneath. He wore an old red fez, stained purple, on the back of his bullet-head; he had a red, freckled face, red eyebrows, red eyes, red hair, and a pointed red beard, both of which were very ragged and unkempt.
"Have you got anything to tell me?" asked McKay, sharply, in English; and when the other shook his head he tried him in French, Spanish, and last of all in Italian.
"News," replied the visitor, at length, laconically; "ten dollars."
McKay put the money in his hand and was told briefly—
"To-morrow—sortie—Woronzoff Road."
And this was all the fellow would say.
McKay passed on this information to his chief, but rather doubtfully, declining to vouch for it, or say whence it had come.
It was felt, however, that no harm could be done in accepting the news as true and preparing for a Russian attack. The event proved the wisdom of this course. The sortie was made next night. A Russian column of considerable strength advanced some distance along the Woronzoff Road, but finding the English on the alert immediately retired.