On Secret Service

ewood, where he lay concealed from view, whilst the transformed peasant drove the empty sleigh hastily along a road which branched off at right angles to the Smovitch route, along which Bareilly, now standing on a rough board thrown across the shafts where they joined the body of the sleigh, urged on his clumsy horses at a good swift walk, to all appearances a typical Russian peasant.

Barely two minutes after the heavy wood-sleigh had got under way, the outwitted policemen dashed up in a sleigh which they had borrowed from the innkeeper. Here the marks of two sleighs caused them to halt some minutes, but a closer examination showed that whilst one set of tracks was made by some heavily laden vehicle, most probably by the one they could just see disappearing down the Smovitch road, the other marks were closer together, and lighter. Without further hesitation they dashed off towards the River Vetluga, whither the sleigh-marks led, only to find, after a chase of ten miles, the fugitive sleigh, deserted an