'What is the matter? Where are you going?' asked Olenin, with
difficulty attracting the Cossacks' attention.

'We are off to catch abreks. They're hiding among the sand-drifts. We
are just off, but there are not enough of us yet.'

And the Cossacks continued to shout, more and more of them joining as
they rode down the street. It occurred to Olenin that it would not look
well for him to stay behind; besides he thought he could soon come
back. He dressed, loaded his gun with bullets, jumped onto his horse
which Vanyusha had saddled more or less well, and overtook the Cossacks
at the village gates. The Cossacks had dismounted, and filling a wooden
bowl with chikhir from a little cask which they had brought with them,
they passed the bowl round to one another and drank to the success of
their expedition. Among them was a smartly dressed young cornet, who
happened to be in the village and who took command of the group of nine
Cossacks who had joined for the expedition. All these Cossacks were
privates, and although the cornet assumed the airs of a commanding
officer, they only obeyed Lukashka. Of Olenin they took no notice at
all, and when they had all mounted and started, and Olenin rode up to
the cornet and began asking him what was taking place, the cornet, who
was usually quite friendly, treated him with marked condescension. It
was with great difficulty that Olenin managed to find out from him what
was happening. Scouts who had been sent out to search for abreks had
come upon several hillsmen some six miles from the village. These
abreks had taken shelter in pits and had fired at the scouts, declaring
they would not surrender. A corporal who had been scouting with two
Cossacks had remained to watch the abreks, and had sent one Cossack
back to get help.

The sun was just rising. Three miles beyond the village the steppe
spread out and nothing was visible except the dry, monotonous, sandy,
dismal plain covered with the footmarks of cattle, and here and there
with tufts of withered grass, with low reeds in the flats, and rare,
little-trodden footpaths, and the camps of the nomad Nogay tribe just
visible far away. The absence of shade and the austere aspect of the
place were striking. The sun always rises and sets red in the steppe.
When it is windy whole hills of sand are carried by the wind from place
to place.

When it is calm, as it was that morning, the silence, uninterrupted by
any movement or sound, is pecul