The Ataman pushed through the guards, and strode into the room, looking straight at Peter, stern and challenging. The Mongol chieftain’s greatcoat was off, and his somewhat fantastic costume betrayed his childish love for personal display. Rising from the swarthy forehead was the towering white cap of long hairy wool, studded in the center of its flat front by a wide slab of crudely hammered gold half the size of a man’s hand, and in it set a diamond. At his left side hung a tremendous scimitar with a hilt-knot of gold fiber swinging from the guard. He wore a snuff-brown tunic with big brass buttons, blue riding breeches with double stripes of gold braid down the sides, and heavy black boots fitted with wheel-like spurs of silver. His shoulders were covered with broad straps of gold cloth. In his belt were a pair of pistols, the butts sticking up from the tops of uncovered holsters. An order of the Czar hung from the top of a tunic pocket, an odd link between the shattered empire and this usurper, who was crafty enough to display upon his person something which still had a meaning to many of his followers and reflected a trace of the vanished glory of the throne. A pair of gold devices gleamed upon the standing collar of the tunic of the Ataman, and his long black hair which fringed his ears, was all the blacker for the whiteness of the woolly cap. Zorogoff marched toward Peter, his boots pounding the floor belligerently, his small black eyes burning with a glittering menace. But he stopped when he could have put out his hand and touched Peter—stopped with an abrupt and final thump of the heel of his left boot as he planted it close beside the right boot. “There is the American officer,” said Shimilin, still standing by the door. “That is the man, sir, who sent the message.” Some of the soldiers edged into the room and grounded their rifles with jarring thuds, and the others outside in the hall pressed forward, thrusting their heads in. Peter bowed. “I am Lieutenant Gordon of the American army,” he said with cold formality, and returned the Ataman’s angry stare. “I have come to hear you oppose my will,” growled Zorogoff, a wicked twist to the corner of his lips, and venom in his eyes. “And what is your will, sir?” demanded Peter, putting enough deference into his words and manner to prevent Zorogoff from having any complaint on the ground of lack of civility or respect. “My officers report that you have been in my city several days. You come here as an American and ignore me and my government.” “I can assure you that you will not be ignored by the American army, sir,” said Peter. “Do you, representing the American army, dare tell my officers what they may not do?” “I requested your officer not to arrest General Kirsakoff and his daughter in my room. They came here to talk with me, and till I have finished talking with them, your officers must not interfere, sir.”