and Judas.

* * * * *

One late afternoon, while smoking his large cigar and hopefully
inspecting the neighbouring forest for wolves, this able young man
beheld a sotnia of Ural Cossacks galloping across the snow toward the
flying sleigh, where he and Estridge sat so snugly ensconced.

There was, of course, only one thing to do, and that was to halt.
Kaledines had blown his brains out, but his riders rode as swiftly as
ever. So the sleigh stopped.

And now these matchless horsemen of the Wild Division came galloping
up around the sleigh. Brilliant little slanting eyes glittered under
shaggy head-gear; broad, thick-lipped mouths split into grins at sight
of the two little American flags fluttering so gaily on the sleigh.

Then two booted and furred riders climbed out of their saddles, and,
under their sheepskin caps, Brisson saw the delicate features of two
young women, one a big, superb, blue-eyed girl; the other slim,
dark-eyed, and ivory-pale.

The latter said in English: "Could you help us? We saw the flags on
your sleigh. We are trying to leave the country. I am American. My
name is Palla Dumont. My friend is Swedish and her name is Ilse
Westgard."

"Get in, any way," said Brisson briskly. "We can't be in a worse mess
than we are. I imagine it's the same case with you. So if we're all
going to smash, it's pleasanter, I think, to go together."

At that the Swedish girl laughed and aided her companion to enter the
sleigh.

"Good-bye!" she called in her clear, gay voice to the Cossacks. "When
we come back again we shall ride with you from Vladivostok to Moscow
and never see an enemy!"

When the young women were comfortably ensconced in the sleigh, the
riders of the Wild Division crowded their horses around them and
shook hands with them English fashion.

"When you come back," they cried, "you shall find us riding through
Petrograd behind Korniloff!" And to Brisson and Estridge, in a
friendly manner: "Come also, comrades. We will show you a monument
made out of heads and higher than the Kremlin. That would be a funny
joke and worth coming back to see."

Brisson said pleasantly that such an exquisite jest would be well
worth their return to Russia.

Everybody seemed pleased; the Cossacks wheeled their shaggy mounts and
trotted away into the woods, singing. The sleigh drove on.

"This is very jolly," said Brisson cheerfully. "Wherever we're bound
for, now, we'l