Tver, the driver of the sleigh
containing Etta, Maggie, and Paul had suddenly rolled off his perch. His
hands were frostbitten; a piteous blue face peered out at his master
through ice-laden eyebrows, mustache, and beard. In a moment Maggie was
out in the snow beside the two men, while Etta hastily closed the door.

"He is all right," said Paul; "it is only the cold. Pour some brandy
into his mouth while I hold the ice aside. _Don't_ take off your gloves.
The flask will stick to your fingers."

Maggie obeyed with her usual breezy readiness, turning to nod
reassurance to Etta, who, truth to tell, had pulled up the rime-covered
windows, shutting out the whole scene.

"He must come inside," said Maggie. "We are nice and warm with all the
hot-water cans."

Paul looked rather dubiously toward the sleigh.

"You can carry him, I suppose?" said the girl cheerfully. "He is not
very big--he is all fur coat."

Etta looked rather disgusted, but made no objection, while Paul lifted
the frozen man into the seat he had just vacated.

"When you are cold I will drive," cried Maggie, as Paul shut the door.
"I should love it."

Thus it came about that a single sleigh was speeding across the plain of
Tver.

Paul, with the composure that comes of a large experience, gathered the
reins in his two hands, driving with both and with extended arms, after
the manner of Russian yemschiks. For a man must accommodate himself to
circumstance, and fingerless gloves are not conducive to a finished
style of handling the ribbons.

This driver knew that the next station was twenty miles off; that at any
moment the horses might break down or plunge into a drift. He knew that
in the event of such emergencies it would be singularly easy for four
people to die of cold within a few miles of help. But he had faced such
possibilities a hundred times before in this vast country, where the
standard price of a human life is no great sum. He was not, therefore,
dismayed, but rather took delight in battling with the elements, as all
strong men should, and most of them, thank Heaven, do.

Moreover he battled successfully, and before the moon was well up drew
rein outside the village of Osterno, to accede at last to the
oft-repeated prayer of the driver that he might return to his task.

"It is not meet," the man had gruffly said, whenever a short halt was
made to change horses, "that a great prince should drive a yemschik."

"It is meet," answered Paul