CHAPTER VII
STATE CRIMINALS AT KARÁ
ON the morning after my first visit to the political convicts of the free command I called again at the little cabin of the Armfeldts, taking Mr. Frost with me. Major Pótulof was expected back from list Kará that night, and I knew his return would put a stop to my operations. It was important, therefore, that I should make the best possible use of the twelve or fourteen hours of freedom that still remained to me. I did not expect to be able, for any great length of time, to conceal from the authorities my intercourse with the political convicts. I was well aware that it must, sooner or later, be discovered, and all that I hoped to do was to get as much information as possible before the inevitable interference should come. There was some risk, of course, in visiting the houses of the free command openly by daylight; but we could not afford to waste any time in inaction, and I had promised Miss Armfeldt that I would return early that forenoon if not prevented by some unforeseen complication or embarrassment.
A brisk walk of fifteen or twenty minutes brought us to our destination, and we were admitted to the house by Miss Armfeldt herself. In the searching light of a clear, cold, winter morning, the little cabin, with its whitewashed log walls, plank floor, and curtainless windows, looked even more bare and cheerless than it had seemed to me when I first saw it. Its poverty-stricken appearance, moreover, was emphasized, rather than relieved, by the
