Our guide probably did not surmise our real intention and sometimes, apprehensively looking down at the ground, would say: "Three riders on horses with shoes on have passed here.

Perhaps they were soldiers." His anxiety was terminated when he discovered that the tracks led off to one side and then returned to the trail.
"They did not proceed farther," he remarked, slyly smiling.
"That's too bad," we answered.

"It would have been more lively to travel in company." But the peasant only stroked his beard and laughed.

Evidently he was not taken in by our statement.
We passed on the way a gold mine that had been formerly planned and equipped on splendid lines but was now abandoned and the buildings all destroyed.

The Bolsheviki had taken away the machinery, supplies and also some parts of the buildings.