r a fire that could be seen as far as Moscow.

That night they discovered vodka--not much--enough to set them
singing first, then dancing. The troopers danced together in the
fire-glare--clumsily, in their boots, with interims of the _pas
seul_ savouring of the capers of those ancient Mongol horsemen in
the _Hezars_ of Genghis Khan.

But no dancing, no singing, no clumsy capers were enough to satisfy
these riders of the Wild Division, now made boisterous by vodka and
horse-meat. Gossip crackled in every group; jests flew; they shouted
at the peasants; they roared at their own jokes.

"Comrade novice!--Pretty boy with a shorn head!" they bawled.
"Harangue us once more on law and love."

She stood with legs apart and thumbs hooked in her belt, laughing at
them across the fire. And all around crowded the wretched _mujiks_,
peering at her through shaggy hair, out of little wolfish eyes.

A Cossack shouted: "My law first! Land for all! That is what we have,
we Cossacks! Land for the people, one and all--land for the _mujik_;
land for the bourgeois; land for the aristocrat! That law solves all,
clears all questions, satisfies all. It is the Law of Peace!"

A Cossack shoved a soldier-deserter forward into the firelight. He
wore a patch of red on his sleeve.

"Answer, comrade! Is that the true law? Or have you and your comrades
made a better one in Petrograd?"

The deserter, a little frightened, tried to grin: "A good law is, kill
all generals," he said huskily. "Afterward we shall have peace."

A roar of laughter greeted him; these dark, thickset Cossacks with
slanting eyes were from the Urals. What did they care how many
generals were killed? Besides, their hetman had already killed
himself.

Their officer moved out into the firelight--a reckless rider but a
dull brain--and stood lashing at his snow-crusted boots with the
silver-mounted quirt.

"Like gendarmes," he said, "we Cossacks are forever doing the dirty
work of other people. Why? It begins to sicken me. Why are we forever
executing the law! What law? Who made it? The Tzar. And he is dead,
and what is the good of the law he made?

"Why should free Cossacks be policemen any more when there is no law?

"We played gendarme for the Monarchists. We answered the distress call
of the Cadets and the bourgeoisie! Where are they? Where is the law
they made?"

He stood switching his dirty boots and swinging his heavy head right
and left with the stupid, lowering