AFTER Captain Shimilin’s demand for a million rubles for the Ataman Zorogoff, Katerin and her father knew that they were no longer safe. They had a fortune hidden in the old log house. It consisted of packets of Imperial rubles which had been smuggled from Kirsakoff’s bank before the looters had begun their raids in the city. The soldiers would come now and strip the house of all its contents to find the money. And if they did find the money, Michael and Katerin would be accused of opposing Zorogoff’s government and dealt with as many of the friends of the Kirsakoffs had already been dealt with—a secret firing squad in a prison yard at dawn. As Michael had said, to surrender the fortune would not mean safety. Others had done that, only to be destroyed so that no embarrassing claims might be made against Zorogoff in the future. Zorogoff was but a brigand chief, maintaining an army at the expense of the wealthy people in his district and using the peasants and former workmen to build up his new autocracy—destroy the aristocrats with the workers and then enslave the workers who had done the business for him. Thus he played the poor against the rich and controlled both. And it was his purpose to leave none living who understood his aims. In Michael’s room there was a stove of tile built into the wall. It reached to the ceiling, and stuck out into the room like the half of a supporting pillar—a great black column faced with blackened zinc sheets of half-cylinders. At the bottom was a small iron door to admit the wood, with a circular damper through which the flames might be seen when there was fire in the stove. But the Kirsakoffs did not use this stove. They used their scant supply of fuel in the stove in Katerin’s room, not only to conserve their heat in the most comfortable room, but to reduce the amount of smoke visible from the chimneys outside during the day. The stove in Michael’s room had been selected as the hiding place for the Imperial notes which had been smuggled from the bank weeks before. It was Katerin’s idea that the packets could be stacked against the tiles on the outside of the stove, and the sheets of zinc replaced. And unless a fire was maintained in the stove for a time long enough to heat the tiles to the danger point, the paper money would not be injured. If the Cossacks came to search for the money, she planned to light a smoldering fire in the stove. And by night, a couple of candles in behind some pieces of charred wood, would throw out light through the damper so that it would appear that the stove was burning. The packets of rubles were now concealed in a lot of discarded peasants’ clothing. The various garments had been distributed through the house, but Katerin had gathered them in her father’s room, and was ripping them open, while Michael was preparing the stove for the money by removing the zinc facing against the tiles.