There were other cases (empty ones) outside the Officers' Club. And in the happy city, parties were held, with sparkling jollity, and entertainments, and dances, and jingling sleigh rides, and down the long toboggan run near the domed cathedral roistering funmakers with screaming laughter would glide through the exhilarating Arctic air to the white world below. The varied military were having a rather unique and amusing time of it in jaunty galliard Archangel, and none of the impassive Slavs there seemed agitated or even interested in this war to bring peace to "sad, distressed, and afflicted Russia," which had ended life for many Americans and broken the lives of many more. Russian soldiery was everywhere, Russian officers, with gaudy uniform and restored Imperialistic hauteur; and Russian soldiers drilling on the parade grounds, with a snap and a smartness that was oddly British, all fit and well-fed looking, capable of destroying untold American rations, with the appearance of being able to shoulder a musket in defense of their country if they were so minded, but with no apparent intention of being so disposed. Every soldier knew of the scene at Alexandra Nevsky Barracks, where American machine guns were turned on the S.B.A.Ls. to put down the revolt that occurred when our Russian allies were ordered to the fighting front. And poignantly fresh was the memory of the faithless conduct that had lost Plesetskaya in December. Treachery at the front, and treachery stabbing in rear! Why should American soldiers die and suffer exposure and hardship for these heedless, indifferent people? And if the fight was not for Russia, what was it for? There were persistent rumors of a war to collect imperialistic claims and money obligations, and other passing rumors as errant and disordered as the Red Bolo Bolshevik propaganda that begot them. But was it altogether strange, that after this had gone on for months and months, when the soldier asked for the facts and the facts were denied him, that he should begin to wonder, and to grow almost embittered; that, in fact, one of the companies should give audible expression to its turbulence? During the last part of March, a convoy of sleighs drew up before Smolny Barracks to carry this company and its equipment over the frozen bay of Archangel to the station where a train was waiting to take them to the Railway Front. But the men did not stir from their barracks, and the equipment was not loaded, so that the colonel of the American regiment came (somewhat hastily) from his warm quarters to learn the reason for the delay. The colonel assembled his soldiers in a large Y.M.C.A. hall, and read them that Article of War which pronounces death as the penalty for mutiny. Then, following an impressive stillness, he asked if there were any questions. There were no inquiries concerning the Article of War, which is terse, succinct and unequivocal, but one soldier arose very respectfully and said: