A country gentleman was driving home in the dead of night, when his horses became frightened and were pursued by wolves. Ammunition was soon expended and escape seemed hopeless when a large party of mounted men came to the rescue and drove off the ravenous brutes. The grateful traveller, mistaking them for local police, thanked them warmly for their timely help. “Man is bound to assist his fellow man,” was the quiet reply, “but we want something more than thanks. We are not pandours but gentlemen of the plain in search of horses and any money we can pick up. You have not recognised us, but we know you and cannot allow you to run the risk of going home with wolves prowling round. You must be our guest for a time.” They took him to a neighbouring farm, gave him supper and a bed and made him write a letter to his wife saying he was detained by highwaymen who would not part with him until she had paid over ten thousand florins as his ransom. The money was duly handed over and the gentleman released. But he was not content to submit. Upon reaching home he raised a hue and cry against the betyars, and they were unceasingly pursued and driven from that part of the country, to which they did not dare to return for a long time. Fifteen years later, they swooped down upon the proprietor whom they thought had betrayed them, and burned his residence and his well-filled granaries to the ground. In explanation, the following letter reached him: “We betyars never forget or forgive. We owe our expulsion from this district to you, and we swore to take our revenge when we were next in your neighbourhood. That vow was fulfilled last night! Let this be a lesson to you never again to break a solemn promise given to a betyar.” The brigands often descended upon their victims with dramatic suddenness. Their information was always accurate and excellent. Tucker in his “Life and Society in Eastern Europe,” describes the startling appearance of a much-dreaded betyar at a historic castle in Transylvania. “The noble count was at table with his guests, doing justice to a sumptuous supper, when the doors were thrown open and gave admission to a tall, dark, handsome, fiery-eyed man, who advanced with a profound obeisance and said, ‘I do myself the honour of paying my respects to your excellencies,’ upon which he approached the countess with martial step and clanking spurs and raised her trembling fingers to his lips. No thunderbolt from heaven, no special apparition from beyond the grave, could have terrified, stupefied, stunned the convivial assemblage more effectually than the sudden entrance of this stranger.