“Do you understand, ‘Comrade,’” said one of them to me, “we are looking for counter-revolutionists to shoot them?”

I knew it without his explanations.  All my forces were directed to assuring them by my conduct that I was a simple peasant hunter and that I had nothing in common with the counter-revolutionists.  I was thinking also all the time of where I should go after the departure of my unwelcome guests.  It grew dark.  In the darkness their faces were even less attractive.  They took out bottles of vodka and drank and the alcohol began to act very noticeably.  They talked loudly and constantly interrupted each other, boasting how many bourgeoisie they had killed in Krasnoyarsk and how many Cossacks they had slid under the ice in the river.  Afterwards they began to quarrel but soon they were tired and prepared to sleep.  All of a sudden and without any warning the door of the hut swung wide open and the steam of the heated room rolled out in a great cloud, out of which seemed to rise like a genie, as the steam settled, the figure of a tall, gaunt peasant impressively crowned with the high Astrakhan cap and wrapped in the great sheepskin overcoat that added to the massiveness of his figure.  He stood with his rifle ready to fire.  Under his girdle lay the sharp ax without which the Siberian peasant cannot exist.  Eyes, quick and glimmering like those of a wild beast, fixed themselves alternately on each of us.  In a moment he took off his cap, made the sign of the cross on his breast and asked of us:  “Who is the master here?”

I answered him.

“May I stop the night?”

“Yes,” I replied, “places enough for all.  Take a cup of tea.  It is still hot.”

The stranger, running his eyes constantly over all of us and over everything about the room, began to take off his skin coat after putting his rifle in the corner.  He was dressed in an old leather blouse with trousers of the same material tucked in high felt boots.  His face was quite young, fine and tinged with something akin to mockery.  His white, sharp teeth glimmered as his eyes penetrated everything they rested upon.  I noticed the locks of grey in his shaggy head.  Lines of bitterness circled his mouth.  They showed his life had been very stormy and full of danger.  He took a seat beside his rifle and laid his ax on the floor below.

“What?  Is it your wife?” asked one of the drunken soldiers, pointing to the ax.

The tall peasant looked calmly at him from the quiet eyes under their heavy brows and as calmly answered: 

“One meets a different folk these days and with an ax it is much safer.”

He began to drink tea very greedily, while his eyes looked at me many times with sharp inquiry in them and ran often round the whole cabin in search of the answer to his doubts.  Very slowly and with a guarded drawl he answered all the questions of the soldiers between gulps of the hot tea, then he turned his glass upside down as evidence of having finished, placed on the top of it the small lump of sugar left and remarked to the soldiers: