And during the day, at every stop, we three Americans got out for air, risking having our feet frozen in the process. The Czechs did not seem to mind--they went on with their cooking, and stoked the fires all the harder to warm the air we had cooled by opening the doors to go out. Everything that was metal inside, became covered with heavy frost--pistols, iron braces, nail-heads, bolts. And to touch any of the iron work with bare hands, getting on or off the car, meant leaving a palm sticking to the iron. At the same time that the water-bucket on the floor under my bunk was freezing solid, when I stood up to dress my head was in smothering heat gathered at the top of the car. And the passing landscape was obscured by tropical foliage, etched in frost, on the double windows. In such a climate, I can well understand that the Russian peasant cares little who rules in Petrograd, for his mind is concerned only with having food, shelter and warmth. Such cold probably accounts for much of the mental stupefaction of the Siberians, and explains why the Czars held their power so long. When Siberia was chosen as a place of exile, to cure people of thinking, the person who selected that frozen land for prisons doubtless knew what terrible cold will do to the human brain. It killed many exiles, but it acted as a preservative of their ideas, and they bided their time, waiting for a chance to get freedom, so that they might go on a spree of destruction. It will take more than a few months of education to turn such people from their age-old lessons in oppression, cruelty and annihilation. There was a merry wag among the Czechs. He had lost two front teeth, he was poorly clad, but he relished his soup, enjoyed his sleep, and was always smiling and chattering gaily. One cold night, when we were out of coal, he dug from his boxes a gorgeous robe, blue outside and embellished with red decorations of barbaric design. It was lined with long, white Angora-goat wool. As he wrapped himself in it, he looked like some Mongolian prince, preparing for a royal audience. This garment roused my curiosity. He said it was from the Khirgiz tribes. I asked its price, and Werkstein interpreted this: “A man’s life.” “Whose life?” I asked. “The man who had it.” “Who had it?” “A Bolshevist.” “Why did it cost him his life?” “Because I killed him and took it.” The wag smiled a gentle smile. “He got that rifle, and that pistol he has, from the same man,” said Werkstein. And the wag rolled up and went to sleep, evidently not at all concerned about the ghost of the Bolshevist who had owned the robe.