[Illustration: A SATRAP RECEIVING DEPUTIES.] This was all that could be desired, and the generals agreed to conclude the treaty on the terms proposed. But their previous experience of the Persians had not been such as to induce them to place much confidence in any promises they might make, and they judged that it was best, notwithstanding the treaty, to remain on their guard. Tiribazus followed their march at the distance of rather more than a mile. During the night that followed, the Hellenes were encamped beneath the open sky, when they were overtaken by the first fall of snow. The next day there was nothing to be seen of Tiribazus, and thinking that the deep snow would prevent him from attempting any surprise, they ventured, when night came on, to take up their quarters in some villages which they had reached. In the morning however, some of the soldiers who had strayed to a distance the previous night, reported that they had seen a great number of fires in the neighbourhood, which seemed to show that the army of Tiribazus was not far off. The generals decided therefore that it was too unsafe to break up the army by allowing the soldiers to scatter themselves over various villages, and on the next night again camped out in the open, where all could be together. But again the snow came down, and this time more heavily than before, burying as if in a grave, both the men and their stacks of weapons. The frost too was very severe, and the transport horses were so benumbed that they could hardly raise their limbs from the ground. The soldiers remained lying beneath the snow, for they found it warmer to be thus covered up, as if with a soft blanket, but Xenophon roused himself, and taking an axe, began to cut wood, partly for the sake of getting warm, partly in order to make a fire. Then some of the men followed his example, and soon they had a number of fires blazing. After a night of such severity, the generals were afraid to risk spending another in the open air, and decided that at all hazards they must take shelter the next evening in the villages. They determined however to send out a small band of men, under cover of the darkness, to search in the direction in which the soldiers had stated that they had seen the fires burning. No fires could be discovered, but the soldiers came upon a man carrying a battle-axe, and a Persian bow and quiver. When they asked him who he was, and where he came from, the man replied that he was a Persian, and had come from the army of Tiribazus to seek for food. Then they questioned him further as to the size of the army, and the purpose for which it had been assembled, and ascertained from his answers that the satrap was keeping a little in advance of the Hellenes in order to seize a pass in the mountains that they were now approaching, before they should reach it.