"I should say that a great many of them do, Godfrey. I know there are missionaries and schools among them, and some of them live in settled villages, though they are so wedded to their own wandering life that they build their houses on the exact model of their tents, with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. Still, as they deal with the towns and come in to sell their cattle and sheep and herds and so on, no doubt the greater part of them, at any rate on this side of the frontier, speak a certain amount of Russian. The difficulty will be to persuade them not to give you up." "But I can pay them more not to give me up than they can get for doing so," Godfrey said. "They would kill you for what you have, Godfrey. They are permitted to kill runaways, in fact encouraged to do so, and the reward is the same whether they are brought in dead or alive." "I should think, Alexis, it is easier to bring in a live man than a dead one." "I don't know," the Russian laughed. "I don't think a Buriat would find it very easy to take you any distance alive, but there would be no trouble in chucking you into a cart and bringing you here after the preliminary operation of knocking you on the head." Godfrey smiled. "You forget there would be some preliminary trouble in knocking me on the head, Alexis; but seriously, I don't think any natives who have been in contact at all with civilization are disposed to take life without some strong motive. Of course robbery would be a motive, but I should certainly have nothing about me that a Tartar or a Buriat--I suppose they are all something of the same thing--would covet. You were telling me yourself that many of these people have very large flocks and herds. Is it likely such people as these would cut a stranger's throat on the chance of finding a few roubles in his pocket?" "Well, one would think not, Godfrey; but of course they are not all rich." "No; they may not be rich, but you say they are always nomads. Well, people who are nomads must always have some sort of animals to carry their tents, and a certain amount, anyhow, of cattle, horses, or sheep. No, I don't at all believe in cutting throats without a motive." "But let us understand a little more about your intentions, Godfrey. Do you mean to climb over that fence and then to stroll away to the south with your hands in your pockets and your hat on one side of your head, and to ask the first man you come upon to direct you to the shortest road to Pekin?"