The staff-train moved off, but the officers went on foot.
A wide array of men, wagons, horses, cannon, ordinance. All in a vast
confusion. None could hear the rattling fire of the machine-guns and
rifles. All was lost in a torrential downpour of rain. Towards
evening there was a halt. All were eager to rest. No one noticed the
approaching dawn. Then a Russian battery commenced to thunder. They
were ordered to counter-attack. They trudged back through the rain,
no one knew why--Agrenev, Kremnev, the brethren--three women.
THE SNOW WIND
A cruel, biting blizzard swept across the snow; over the earth moved
misty, fantastic clouds, that drifted slowly across the face of a
pale troubled moon. Towards night-fall, the wolves could be heard in
the valley, howling a summons to their leader from the spot where the
pack always assembled.
The valley descended sharply to a hollow thickly overgrown with red
pines. Thirteen years back an unusually violent storm had swept the
vicinity, and hurled an entire pine belt to the ground. Now, under
the wide, windy sky, spread a luxuriant growth of young firs, while
little oaks, hazels, and alders here and there dotted the depression.
Here the leader of the wolf-pack had his lair. Here for thirteen
years his mate had borne his cubs. He was already old, but huge,
strong, greedy, ferocious, and fearless, with lean legs, powerful
snapping jaws, a short, thick neck on which the hair stood up
shaggily like a short mane and terrified his younger companions.
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