G--kof had a bold, jaunty air, walked with long strides, holding himself very straight; “a regular eagle,” the convicts used to call him. He could not do much to lighten their lot materially, for his office was that of superintending the engineering work, which had to be done in ways and quantities, settled absolutely and unalterably by the regulations. But if he happened to come across a gang of convicts who had actually got through their work, he allowed them to go back to quarters before beat of drum, without waiting for the regulation moment. The prisoners loved him for the confidence he showed in them, and because of his aversion for all mean, trifling interferences with them, which are so irritating when prison superiors are addicted to that sort of thing. I am absolutely certain that if he had lost a thousand roubles in notes, there was not a thief in the prison, however hardened, who would not have brought them to him, if the man lit on them. I am sure of it. How the prisoners all felt for him, and with him when they learned that he was at daggers drawn with our detested Major. That came about a month after his arrival. Their delight knew no bounds. The Major had formerly served with him in the same detachment; so, when they met, after a long separation, they were at first boon companions, but the intimacy could not and did not last. They came to blows--figuratively--and G--kof became the Major’s sworn enemy. Some would have it that it was _more_ than figuratively, that they came to actual fisticuffs, a likely thing enough as far as the Major was concerned, for the man had no objection to a scrimmage. When the convicts heard of the quarrel they really could not contain their delight. “Old Eight-eyes and the Commandant get on finely together! _He’s_ an eagle; but the other’s a _bad ’un_!” Those who believed in the fight were mighty curious to know which of the two had had the worst of it, and got a good drubbing. If it had been proved there had been no fighting our convicts, I think, would have been bitterly disappointed. “The Commandant gave him fits, you may bet your life on it,” said they; “he’s a little ’un, but as bold as a lion; the other one got into a blue funk, and hid under the bed from him.” But G--kof went away only too soon, and keenly was he regretted in the prison. Our engineers were all most excellent fellows; we had three or four fresh batches of them while I was there. “Our eagles never remain very long with us,” said the prisoners; “especially when they are good and kind fellows.”