Sometimes their canopy would be a lilac sea, with islands of suave saffron, and slender, garish emerald reefs, which could never escape the tristful quality of the haunting Russian skies, where tragedy and melodrama ever unfolded till night clasped in blackness the brief twilight of those doleful winter days. Under their humble roofs, the patient people revealed a hospitality that was moving in its utter absence of guile. The cherished samovar would be brought forth from a covert trove to kindle the uninvited guests with steaming tea, and in the evening all the villagers would troop to the crowded huts to doff their hats and cross themselves with pious orisons, and gaze with never wearying gaze at the strangers from the far fabled land of miracle and hope. Years from now moujik grandmothers will group rapt children around the oven stoves to tell them of the strange Americanskis who once came so many miles in the dread winter cold to help afflicted Russia. Out in the frigid night, the aurora of the north swung swaying evanescent curtains, now fluttering with faint ethereal light, now springing to flowing, colorful life again, and one could fancy that Thalia signaled from the night heavens a playful spectral heliograph, mocking these silly little men so far below, that strove to conquer the dread elements of that gaunt Northland. But, if in the whole campaign the somber veil of tragedy was ever lifted, it was at this front where the altruistic intention of the Allies seemed to have caught the consciousness of the people (whether or not this intent was in fact altruistic), they bore not only benevolence, but even humble touching gratitude towards their deliverers, and even undertook the burden of their own battles. Many Russians were lost in these battles for Pinega, but after the first expeditionary engagements not one American fell. In January there was a massed assault, and when the fall of the city seemed almost sure, the Bolsheviks slackened and fell back, with their blade poised for the heart thrust. But in March the defenses were safe in the competent hands of a regiment of White Russians, who were the defenders of their own towns, and the "Allied Legion" of no nation. Likewise there were two field guns with a Russian personnel of artillery, a unit of Russian machine gunners, carefully trained in the service of these rapid, death-dealing instruments of specialized modern war, and all these soldiers of Russia raised their heads high and proud as eagles, wearing no man's collar.