A revolver handle stuck out of his pocket.

Satisfied with his observations and learning that I knew his relatives, he warmly welcomed me to the house and presented me to his wife, a dignified old woman, and to his beautiful little adopted daughter, a girl of five years.

She had been found on the plain beside the dead body of her mother exhausted in her attempt to escape from the Bolsheviki in Siberia.
Bobroff told me that the Russian detachment of Kazagrandi had succeeded in driving the Red troops away from the Kosogol and that we could consequently continue our trip to Khathyl without danger.
"Why did you not stop with me instead of with those brigands ?" asked the old fellow.
I began to question him and received some very important news.

It seemed that Kanine was a Bolshevik, the agent of the Irkutsk Soviet, and stationed here for purposes of observation.

However, now he was rendered harmless, because the road between him and Irkutsk was interrupted.
Still from Biisk in the Altai country had just come a very important commissar.
"Gorokoff ?" I asked.
"That's what he calls himself," replied the old fellow; "but I am also from Biisk and I know everyone there.