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the front part of the train. This person--evidently a stranger--
made good use of his eyes, and asked numberless questions,
to which he received only evasive answers. Every minute leaning
out of the window, which he would keep down, to the great disgust
of his fellow-travelers, he lost nothing of the views to the right.
He inquired the names of the most insignificant places,
their position, what were their commerce, their manufactures,
the number of their inhabitants, the average mortality,
etc., and all this he wrote down in a note-book, already full.

This was the correspondent Alcide Jolivet, and the reason of his putting
so many insignificant questions was, that amongst the many answers
he received, he hoped to find some interesting fact "for his cousin."
But, naturally enough, he was taken for a spy, and not a word treating
of the events of the day was uttered in his hearing.

Finding, therefore, that he could learn nothing of the Tartar
invasion, he wrote in his book, "Travelers of great discretion.
Very close as to political matters."

Whilst Alcide Jolivet noted down his impressions thus minutely,
his confrere, in the same train, traveling for the same object,
was devoting himself to the same work of observation in
another compartment. Neither of them had seen each other
that day at the Moscow station, and they were each ignorant
that the other had set out to visit the scene of the war.
Harry Blount, speaking little, but listening much, had not inspired
his companions with the suspicions which Alcide Jolivet had aroused.
He was not taken for a spy, and therefore his neighbors,
without constraint, gossiped in his presence, allowing themselves
even to go farther than their natural caution would in most cases
have allowed them. The correspondent of the Daily Telegraph
had thus an opportunity of observing how much recent events
preoccupied the merchants of Nijni-Novgorod, and to what a degree
the commerce with Central Asia was threatened in its transit.

He therefore noted in his book this perfectly correct observation,
"My fellow-travelers extremely anxious. Nothing is talked of but war,
and they speak of it, with a freedom which is astonishing, as having
broken out between the Volga and the Vistula."

The readers of the Daily Telegraph would not fail to be as well informed
as Alcide Jolivet's "cousin." But as Harry Blount, seated at the left
of the train, only saw one part of the country, which was hilly,
without giving himself the trouble of looking at the right side,
which was composed of wide plains, he added, with British assurance,
"Country mountainous between Moscow and Wladimir."

It was evident that the Russian government purposed taking severe
measures to guard against any serious eventualities even in the interior
of the empire. The rebel lion had not crossed the Siberian frontier,
but evil influences might be feared in the Volga provinces, so near
to the country of the Kirghiz.

The police had as yet found no traces of Ivan Ogareff.

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