There was a remnant of candle stuck to the dirty window-sill by its own frozen cataract of tallow. The conductor fumbled for a match, struck it, and lighted the candle. The heat from its flame began to melt a widening oval in the frost. The jumping flame revealed more of the interior of the car—rifles hanging to the walls and rattling against the boarding with every lurch of the train, shoes hung on nails, garments swinging from the upper shelves, bare feet sticking out from blankets, outlandish bundles tied with bits of rope and twisted cloths, cartridge belts toothed with the brass tops of cartridges. And above the complaints of the laboring train could be heard the snores and sleep-mutterings of the Czech soldiers—men of an improvised army which had fought its way across Siberia and was now on the back trail to fight again that their comrades might be saved from annihilation by treacherous enemies. The conductor studied the frozen wilderness through the window. Having satisfied himself with the landscape, he stared at the cold stove. He took the big ax which braced the door of the car shut and attacked a chunk of wood on the floor with crashing blows. With the splinters split off he started a fire and dumped in slabs of Manchurian coal, which crackled like a line of musketry and threw out into the car ribbons of yellow stifling smoke. All the sleepers began to cough as the smoke penetrated the car. Soon there was a chattering and a rattling of mess gear, and some one at the other end of the car started the other stove—and a counter smoke-screen against the conductor’s. Another day had begun in the filthy rabbit-hutch of a car. And the gallant Czechs, content to endure their Valley Forge of Siberia, chanted the songs of their homeland. Peter threw off his blankets and sat up. The conductor smiled at him and reached Peter’s boots up to him from the floor. “The fire will make it warm soon,” he said, not knowing that Peter was an American officer and not supposed to understand or speak Russian. “How soon will we get to Chita, my friend?” asked Peter. “To Chita? Oh, soon.” “And how soon?” “Perhaps half an hour. But you are going to Omsk?” “Only to Irkutsk,” said Peter. He broke the ice in his canvas bucket and washed his face, while the conductor looked on awe-struck at any person who could be so mad as to wash in ice water. He scanned Peter’s tunic, which hung from the shelf. “Are you Czech?” he asked finally. “No, I am an American—an officer.” The conductor opened his mouth wide and crossed himself with both hands. “But you speak Russian,” he said. “It is not right that you should speak Russian like a Russian and be an American!” “I am really Russian,” said Peter. “But it is that I have been in America a long time. I came from Petersburg, and now I have come back to help Russia to be free. Do you know Chita well?”