"All herded together, Colonel. Nothing is lacking but the Red Sea."
"How many?"
"Several hundred."
"And where are you going to drive them?"
The young lieutenant raises his shoulders slowly, so that the snow on them touches and cools his red cheeks.
"I'll have to get an order from you as to that!"
"An order!" cries the colonel. "An order! Now, by all three metropolitans! The devil take me if I know!"
The sotnik raises his shoulder again.
"While they're here they will be in our way."
"The vermin," growls the colonel, "always pestering us like——"