“We shall have to get a move on,” said the Colonel. “Keep the horses alive. There’s lots of fodder to be had if we raise Hell. . . . Are you well billeted?”
“Sure,” said the young American, resuming his disguise as a Bolshevik bandit, and tying the ear-flaps of his Tartar cap under his chin. “Better come along, Colonel, and get warm.”
The whole party was crowded into sleighs, and set off in a procession, with a merry jingling of sleigh-bells. Dr. Weekes and Bertram had Nadia for their fellow traveller, and the doctor pulled the rug over her and packed the straw about her feet.
“It’s as cold as Calgary,” he said, “and that’s the coldest place I know.”
“In Russia,” said Nadia, “our blood is a mixture of fire and ice.”
“That’s a darned queer mixture,” said the doctor. “Unknown to chemical science.”
“It’s the secret of Russian history,” she answered.
Peasants halted on the foot-walks to stare at the passing sleighs. Their faces were haggard, and their eyes looked dead.
“There is hunger here,” said Nadia. “In Moscow we haven’t enough to eat, but here they starve.”
The sleighs halted outside a marble-fronted house with many windows, and Nadia gave a little cry of surprise.