ck with three horses
abreast?"

"Yes--it looks so."

"Is there some one inside?"

"The driver perhaps! No, there is no one. Velasco, they have gone
into the inn to drink something warm and ask questions perhaps--'Have
you seen two gypsies, one dark and one fair?'--Ah, Velasco, what shall
we do? Shall we creep past on tiptoe?"

The girl drew close to him and looked up in his face. "What shall we
do, Velasco--speak! You stand there with your eyes half shut, in a
dream. Shall we run, Velasco? Shall we run on ahead?"

The gypsey put his finger to his lips and crept forward. "This is a
God-forsaken hole, Kaya!" he whispered, "No telegraph--and perhaps no
horses; they could only get oxen or mules. It will take several
minutes to drink their hot tea--and the brutes are quite fresh!"

He moved cautiously, swiftly, to the hitching post, fumbling with the
straps. The horses whinnied a little, nosing one another and pawing
the earth.

"What are you doing, Velasco?"

"Jump in, Kaya, jump in--quick, or the driver will hear! Take the
fiddle! Ah, the deuce with this knot!"

With a last tug the knot yielded. Velasco dashed to the step and
sprang on it; then his knees gave beneath him, and he fell in the snow
as the horses leaped forward.

"Oi--oi! Tysyacha chertei! A pest!"

With oaths and shrieks of rage the driver rushed from the kitchen of
the inn, wiping the vodka from his beard with his sleeve. From the
tea-room three other men rushed forward, also shouting, and behind them
the Countess.

"What is it?" she screamed, "Have the horses run away? Where is the
sleigh and my buffalo robe? Are they stolen? Catch the thieves--catch
them!"

Velasco still lay in the snow, stunned by his fall, a dark patch like a
shadow. The sleigh had turned suddenly and veered around, not half a
rod distant. Kaya stood with the reins uplifted, dragging back on the
bits; and the horses were rearing, plunging, back on their haunches,
slipping on the ice.

"Velasco!" she cried, "Velasco!"

Her voice rang out like a trumpet, echoing over the snow; and as she
cried, she swept the horses about and lashed them with the whip, until
they came leaping and trembling close to the patch on the snow, which
had begun to stir slowly, awaking from the swoon.

"Ah, if I were a man!" she cried, "If I were only a man and could lift
you!" She clinched her teeth, swinging the whip, reining back the
struggling animals with her slim, w