When the young women were comfortably ensconced in the sleigh, the riders of the Wild Division crowded 8 their horses around them and shook hands with them English fashion.
“When you come back,” they cried, “you shall find us riding through Petrograd behind Korniloff!” And to Brisson and Estridge, in a friendly manner: “Come also, comrades. We will show you a monument made out of heads and higher than the Kremlin. That would be a funny joke and worth coming back to see.”
Brisson said pleasantly that such an exquisite jest would be well worth their return to Russia.
Everybody seemed pleased; the Cossacks wheeled their shaggy mounts and trotted away into the woods, singing. The sleigh drove on.
“This is very jolly,” said Brisson cheerfully. “Wherever we’re bound for, now, we’ll all go together.”
“Is not America the destination of your long journey?” inquired the big, blue-eyed girl.
Brisson chuckled: “Yes,” he said, “but bullets sometimes shorten routes and alter destinations. I think you ought to know the worst.”
“If that’s the worst, it’s nothing to frighten one,” said the Swedish girl. And her crystalline laughter filled the icy air.
She put one persuasive arm around her slender, dark-eyed comrade:
“To meet God unexpectedly is nothing to scare one, is it, Palla?” she urged coaxingly.