Count ruins cake.

The history of making a cake of the Earl ruins has its roots ... to be honest, I have no idea where it goes. But about how this recipe appeared in my cookbook, I’ll tell you now, and of course I’ll attach the recipe itself.

A long time ago, at the dawn of human civilization, when I was still at university, suddenly spring came. The holiday on March 8 was approaching and Dmitry decided to plan a surprise for me: bake with his own hands cake Earl ruins... He took the miracle stove out of my dorm room for a while and locked himself in for a couple of hours.

I already knew then that Dima knew how to cook well, but I was convinced that he was also good at baking. Since then, this cake has been in second place in our family after. And although the recipe for its preparation is now in my cookbook, but it is cooked, albeit rarely, by my husband. I must say that the recipe for the Count Ruins cake is not so complicated, but it will take two hours to prepare it.

So, today we will cook with you cake Earl ruins.

To make this cake, we need to do:

• Dough: 2 eggs, 1 glass of sugar, 2 tsp. soda, 2 tablespoons. cocoa, 1 cup sour cream, 1.5-2 cups of flour;
• Cream (impregnation): 800 g sour cream, 8 tbsp. sugar, 1 glass walnuts;
• Glaze: 4-6 tablespoons sour cream, 4-6 tbsp. sugar, 4 tablespoons cocoa, 30 g butter.

First, let's prepare the dough.
Grind eggs thoroughly with sugar. Add 2 teaspoons of soda slaked in vinegar, 2 tablespoons of cocoa, 1 glass of sour cream. Mix everything very well. After that, gradually add about 2 cups of flour. The dough should turn out like thick sour cream.
Grease a baking sheet with oil and heat in the oven. Pour the dough onto a heated baking sheet and bake until tender, about 20-30 minutes. Allow the finished cake to cool and then cut it into cubes.


For making cream or the so-called impregnation according to the recipe for the cake Count ruins, you must mix the sour cream well with sugar and add a glass of walnuts at the very end. Everything is simple here, except for the fact that half of the walnuts are eaten even before they are in the sour cream. By the way, it is better to chop the nuts (chop, chop into cabbage), but without fanaticism.

Glaze preparation.
We mix 4 tbsp. spoons of sour cream and 4 tbsp. tablespoons of sugar. The amount of sour cream and sugar can be increased to 6 tablespoons. Add 4 tbsp. tablespoons of cocoa and mix again. After that, pour in 30 g of melted butter and our glaze is ready. At this stage, you have to fight off children, who suddenly need a spoonful of this delicious glaze like air.

Now you can take up the direct production of the Earl ruins cake.


We prepare in advance a tray on which we will destroy (build) our ruins.
We dip the cut “cubes” of baked cakes in the impregnation and put them on a tray in the form of a slide along the entire length of the tray. We fill the finished slide with glaze, helping ourselves with a spoon to evenly distribute it over the ruins, as in the first photo.


leave for a couple of hours at room temperature so that it is saturated (do not forget about the ubiquitous children).
The cake turns out to be very tasty and tender.

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Comments (1)

1. Alla 11 Dec 2012 17:47

   When I was still studying, we made such a cake in the hostel. The whole company did it. And it was incredibly tasty. So many years have passed, and I haven't cooked it anymore. Thank you for reminding me.

2. Natasha 11 Dec 2012 21:30

   If you add frozen or canned cherries to this cake during setting, it will be even tastier, but in general then it will be called a curly pinscher, I advise you to try

3. Irina 11 Dec 2012 23:48

   Yes, and this recipe reminded me of the good old days ... Only we did everything a little differently. Interesting. I ought to dig in and find that recipe.

4. Olga 12 Dec 2012 04:57

   I've never seen a recipe like this before. It is necessary to prepare a cake of the Earl ruins for the New Year.

5. Nadia 12 Dec 2012 06:18

   Cool cake I have never cooked such a cake myself, but I tried something similar at a party And really, very tasty! You must try to bake yourself according to your recipe!

6. Helena 12 Dec 2012 21:38

   I didn’t cook this, but it looks like Prague. We must take note. Dim, thanks for the recipe!

7. Helena 14 Dec 2012 19:45
8. Ollie 16 Dec 2012 17:24
9. Natabul 17 Dec 2012 22:12

   Thanks for the recipe. I have not eaten such sweets for a long time, but for the children I like to cook something interesting for the holiday. Let this time be the Earl Ruins cake!

10. Elena 18 Dec 2012 04:58

    A gorgeous cake turned out. So it begs in the mouth. And the main thing is that it is not difficult to prepare.

11. Elena Semidelukha 18 Dec 2012 11:31

    I've never cooked this. The recipe reminds me of the Black Prince cake - it's mine from childhood. There, such cakes are simply smeared with cream. But I have not succeeded for a long time. Either the sour cream is not the same, or I am not on friendly terms with soda. Something doesn’t work.

The ruins of the Earl are a cake, but not quite ordinary. The dessert is distinguished by its appearance and unusually delicate taste.

The cream-soaked pieces melt in your mouth and give you great pleasure. Time to cook! Collected here are the most popular step-by-step recipes for "Count Ruins".

"Count ruins" - general principles of preparation

Preparing a cake from meringues or from biscuit cakes, sometimes they are combined. Biscuits are prepared with sour cream, but you can also use classic biscuit... If there is no time, then even purchased cakes will do. It will turn out to be lazy and quick cake hastily. For a medium-sized cake, you need two layers, usually one with vanilla and the other with cocoa. One cake serves as a base, the second is cut into pieces, moistened in cream, and stacked in a slide.

Which cream can be used:

Sour cream is a classic option;

Condensed milk with butter;

Custard.

Heavy oil and air butter creams they are not suitable for "Count Ruins", as they do not soak porous pieces very well, the cake will not turn out tender and moist.

In addition to cakes and cream, meringues, fruits or berries are often added to the cake. Nuts are used for decoration and chocolate glaze... But the ruins are not completely covered with chocolate, but simply poured on top. The glaze flows down in droplets, reminiscent of rivulets on sweet ruins.

"Count Ruins": a step-by-step recipe with sour cream and orange

Simple step by step recipe"Count ruins" with sour cream. For the layer, you will additionally need an orange or a couple of tangerines.

Ingredients

Two eggs;

180 grams of sugar;

2 tsp soda;

2 spoons of cocoa;

200 g sour cream in the main dough + 1 sec. l .;

240 grams of flour.

For the cream:

500 grams of sour cream;

160 grams of powder;

Vanillin.

For chocolate glaze:

4 tablespoons of cocoa;

4 tablespoons of sour cream;

0.5 packs sl. oils;

4 tablespoons of sand.

Additionally, you will need a handful of nuts, 1-2 oranges (tangerines can be used), a little syrup or sweet tea to soak the biscuit cakes.

Preparation

1. Combine eggs and granulated sugar in one large bowl. Beat with a mixer for about five minutes to dissolve everything.

2. Add sour cream to the eggs, stir. If the sour cream is sour, then you can immediately extinguish the soda in it. If not, then extinguish separately with lemon juice or vinegar. Add to the dough.

3. Sift the flour, add it. We knead the mass with a spoon. Divide the dough in half.

4. Cover the mold 22-23 cm with a sheet of parchment, spread out one part of the dough. We align with a spatula so that the thickness of the cake is the same over the entire area.

5. We send to the oven heated up to 180 degrees. Bake for 14-15 minutes until tender.

6. In the second part of the dough, add two tablespoons of cocoa powder and one spoonful of sour cream. We mix. We also put it in the form.

7. Remove the light crust from the oven and immediately place the cocoa sponge cake. We bake it for about twenty minutes. Cool both cakes.

8. Prepare the cream. We spread the sour cream and add the vanilla powder. Beat for two minutes. You can also use granulated sugar, but in this case, the cream will need to be whipped longer, it may turn out thinner.

9. Peel the oranges, cut into circles, take out all the seeds.

10. Put a white crust on the bottom of a flat dish, pour over it with syrup or just sweet tea. The impregnation must be cold.

11. On top of the cake, grease the prepared cream and lay out one layer of oranges.

12. Chocolate biscuit cut into pieces or gently break. Soak each one in cream and lay on top of a layer of oranges, forming a slide. It is very important that there are no voids inside. Therefore, we press the pieces lightly.

13. Is the cake ready? We coat it on top with leftovers sour cream and while we put in the refrigerator.

14. Prepare the icing. To do this, mix sour cream, butter. Cocoa and granulated sugar in a saucepan. You can boil the glaze in a water bath, this will be according to the rules. But you can also shorten the time and do it on the stove. Just do not need to move away from the pan, stir constantly.

15. Once the glaze is uniform, remove from heat. Let it stand to cool down. If you put a hot mass on a cake with cream, sour cream will flow.

16. Pour the cake on top with cooled, but not frozen icing.

17. Immediately, until the chocolate is frozen, decorate the "Earl Ruins" with nuts. We leave the cake in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, let it soak and harden.

"Count ruins": a step-by-step meringue recipe

A variation of an air meringue dessert. The step-by-step recipe for "Count Ruins" uses condensed milk cream. But, if you really want to, you can replace it with something else. It will be tasty with rich custard, the more the yolks will remain.

Ingredients

300 grams of sugar;

5 proteins;

300 grams of oil;

1 can of condensed milk;

1 tsp lemon juice;

1 bag of vanilla;

50 g of chocolate;

2 handfuls of nuts.

Preparation

1. Carefully separate the whites from the yolks. Transfer to a clean bowl. This is very important, if even a drop of fat gets in, the meringue will not churn.

2. Begin to beat with a mixer and as soon as the proteins turn into a dense foam, begin to add granulated sugar. Beat until completely dissolved. Dense patterns should extend from the mixer.

3. It's time to add lemon juice. We interrupt everything together for a few seconds. If there is no fresh lemon juice, then you can use diluted acid or just throw in a few crystals, beat well in the total mass until dissolved.

4. Cover baking sheets with parchment. Silicone mats can be used.

5. Put the meringue in a bag and squeeze out small balls 2-3 cm in diameter. Or just lay out the lumps with a spoon, as you like.

6. Put the meringue in the oven. Dry at 90 degrees for 2 hours. We take out, cool completely.

7. Cut the butter into pieces, put in a bowl and leave for an hour at room temperature. It should soften, but not melt.

8. Beat with a mixer butter into a lush lather, about ten minutes.

9. Open a can of condensed milk, gradually add to butter. If you do this quickly, then the cream may turn out to be liquid or there will be lumps. We drive milk into butter.

10. For aroma add vanillin from a bag or a few drops of liquid essence.

11. It is better to fry the nuts a little, they will be tastier. In the classic version, for the ruins of the count is used Walnut... But with peanuts or hazelnuts, it also turns out quite tasty.

12. Chop the toasted nuts lightly so that the pieces are not too large.

13. Grate chocolate into shavings. You can melt it with a lump of butter, but this is easier.

14. Lubricate each meringue with cream, spread the first layer on a plate or on a flat dish. Sprinkle lightly with nuts.

15. Put the second layer of meringue and cream, sprinkle it too and collect the whole cake.

16. Cover the dessert with the remaining cream on all sides. Sprinkle with chocolate, nuts, put in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

"Count Ruins": a step-by-step recipe with meringues and biscuits

The classic step-by-step recipe for the "Earl Ruins" from a tender biscuit and air meringues... In order not to take the oven for a long time and not to waste a lot of time, you can prepare the meringue in advance.

Ingredients

150 g sour cream;

1 tbsp. Sahara;

1.3 tbsp. flour;

0.5 tsp soda;

For the meringue:

1 tbsp. Sahara;

1 pinch of lemon.

For the cream:

A can of thick condensed milk;

Vanillin;

250 grams of butter.

Additionally, nuts, 0.5 chocolates and 2 tbsp. l. oils.

Preparation

1. For the dough, beat fresh chicken eggs in the foam, add granulated sugar in portions. In total, beat the mass for about ten minutes at the highest mixer speed.

2. Add sour cream, stir with a spoon. Now it is better not to use the mixer so as not to sediment the foam.

3. Combine the ripper with flour, add a bag of vanilla to them. Pour everything into the dough, stir.

4. Pour the dough into a 22-24 cm mold.

5. Place the biscuit in the oven. We bake the cake at a temperature of 180 degrees.

6. Cooking meringues. You can do it in advance, it is perfectly stored. Separate the whites and beat in a dry bowl for a couple of minutes. Add granulated sugar on a spoon, but do not stop whisking. After about ten minutes we introduce a pinch of citric acid. Just a minute and turn it off. Proteins should become dense, thick.

7. Put the meringue on the parchment with a teaspoon.

8. Put the proteins in the oven, dry them at 80-90 degrees until tender.

9. Making the cream. For him, you can take boiled condensed milk. It will also turn out delicious. Beat butter, add condensed milk, vanilla to taste.

10. Cut the baked cake lengthwise to make two biscuits. We put one of them on a flat plate, cut up, grease with cream.

11. Expand the meringue layer.

12. Cut the second cake into pieces, grease with cream and place on top of the meringue layer.

14. Combine chocolate and butter, put on water bath and melt.

15. Cool the glaze slightly so that the cream does not drip. We water the ruins of the count and immediately, While the surface is sticky, we scatter the nuts.

If you need to get a large cake, then you need to increase it not only due to the height, but also the diameter. If the slide is high and heavy, the lower biscuit will be compressed, it will not turn out very tasty.

You can sprinkle the ruins not only with nuts, but also coconut flakes, puffed rice, colored dragees, maybe plant cream flowers on them?

Too soft and juicy fruits or berries may flow, it is better to put a smaller amount in the cake or combine only with thick creams.

You can cook biscuit and meringue even a few days before assembling the cake. The sponge cake is perfectly stored in the refrigerator, and the meringue is in a paper bag.

"On the ruins of the counts"

A curly blond head, two bright blue eyes peeped out of the grass, and an angry whisper was heard:

Valka ... Valka ... crawl, idol, to the right! Crawl in from the back, or he will ooh.

The thick burdocks began to stir, and from their swaying tops one could guess that someone was crawling cautiously on the ground.

Suddenly the blond head of the hunter emerged from the grass again. A fired arrow whistled and, thumping dully on the boards of the rotten fence, fell.

A large, fat cat, frightened, rushed to the roof of the crooked bathhouse and quickly disappeared into the attic window.

Doo-urak ... Eh, you! - Indignantly, the hunter said to his comrade rising from the ground. - I told you - crawl. It would be as convenient from the back there, but now, take a bite ... When you keep track of him again.

I would crawl myself, Yashka. There are nettles, and even then I got burned twice.

- "Nettle"! When on the hunt, there is no time for nettles. You should put on a rug again.

And since it burns!

So you endure it. Why am I putting up with it ... Do you want me to rip it off with my bare hand and not even blink? Lying, you think?

Yashka wiped his damp hand, pulled out a large nettle bush and, opening his eyes unnaturally wide, asked triumphantly:

Well, blinked away? Eh you, nurse.

I'm not a nurse at all, - Valka answered offendedly. “I can, too, but I don’t want to.

And you want ... Well, weakly want?

Valka's freckled, snub-nosed face turned red; Now he could not help but accept the challenge.

He went up to the nettles, hesitated, but, feeling the mocking gaze of his comrade on him, with a jerk pulled out a large, old nettle. His lips trembled, his eyes began to water; however, trying to induce a smile, he said, stammering a little:

And I didn't blink either.

Right! - Yashka agreed in a clean way. - If he didn’t blink, then he didn’t blink. Only I still grabbed in the middle, and you were under the spine, and under the spine she had a weaker sting. Well, and that's okay! You know? Let's go to the courtyard, the girls are playing there, and we will arrange a flurry for them.

Is your mother at home?

No. She went to the station to sell milk. No one is at home.

In the courtyard near the fence, homely and chirping like magpies, two girls covered the broken chair and stool with an old blanket and, leaning out of their hut, cheerfully called two other girls:

Please come and visit! We have jam pies today. Come in, please!

But as soon as the guests dignifiedly went to the call, the hostesses of the hut looked at each other in dismay:

The boys are coming!

Yashka and Valka approached slowly, calmly, this time without betraying their true intentions.

Are you playing? - asked Yashka.

Ooh-heck! What are you bothering about? We do not climb up to you, ”said Nyurka, Yashkina’s sister, tearfully.

Why should we leave? - Yashka asked even softer. - We will see and move on. What is this with you? - And he jabbed a finger into the blanket.

This is our home, - answered Nyurka, somewhat taken aback by such an unusually peaceful approach.

Do-oh? Do they build houses from blankets? Houses are built from logs or bricks. You would have dragged bricks from Grafsky and built a strong one, but if you push this one a little, it will crumble.

And Yashka touched the stool with his foot, which caused considerable panic among the inhabitants of the hut.

OK. Where is your pie?

Here, - anxiously following every movement of Yashka, answered Nyurka.

What fools you are! Everything is not human with them. The house is made of blankets, and the pies are made of clay. Come on, eat one pie, come on, bite. Would you like to? You treat people to such rubbish, but you don't want to ... Valka, let's put all their pies in their mouths. They baked them themselves, let them eat them.

I-a-a-shka! - hopelessly sadly, the girls pulled in with one voice. - I-a-shka ... y-go, hu-li-i-ha-an.

Ah ... you still swear! Valka, attack this bandit's nest!

As soon as the threat of defeat and reprisal hung closely over the peaceful inhabitants of the hut, suddenly Yashka felt that someone firmly took him from behind by the whirlwind.

The girls, as if on command, stopped howling. Yashka turned around and saw Valka's heels disappearing behind the fence, and the angry face of his mother, who had returned from the station.

March home! - shouted the mother, giving him a spanking. - Look, robber, and his games are robber ... Look, what Petliura has found out! Wait, your father will come - he will show you how to be ataman!

Yashka's father is old - already fifty-four years old. He serves as a watchman in the council, and used to be a gardener for the count.

The count fled with his family during the revolution. The old manor house was plundered by the peasants. It was unbeknownst, it was clear that the estate could come in handy. In the confusion, someone either deliberately or unintentionally set it on fire. And all the wooden insides of the stone manor burned out. Only the walls are sticking out now, and even those have collapsed in many places. And there is no trace of the greenhouses. During the civil war, the glass shattered from the cannon fire, and the tree rotted.

Earlier, at least the road was past, but since the new bridge was built across the Zelenaya Rechka, the estate has remained completely on the sidelines. And it stands at the edge of the ravine, like a grave monument to the old regime.

Yashka's father, Nefedych, came back today completely kind, because the pay was. And on a paycheck, every person is, of course, kind, and therefore, when his mother began to complain about Yashka that she wasn’t good with him, my father answered conciliatoryly:

Nothing, in the fall he will go to school again, then the foolishness will fly out of his head for studies.

It's still a long time before autumn. He will be spoiled altogether. What is it to you, but I have him in front of my eyes.

Yashka sat in silence, his head buried in the plate, and did not make excuses.

This silence made the mother even more angry, and she, puffing a pot of porridge and pork on the table, continued:

That way, goodness will not come out of the boy. Kiddies also went ... Today I am walking from the station, I look - in a haystack, near the path, something is tossing and turning. Isn't it our piglet running in? .. She came up, looked, and so she froze. A mug sticks out from there, black, lo-ohmata, all as it is in soot. There is a cigarette in the mouth, and in the hand there is a wheel with rubber, and in the rubber there is a pebble. A boy of thirteen years old, and terrible - no strength. I’m back, and he whistles like that, but he’s whistling like that, which already rang in his ears.

At these words, Yashka became wary, and Nefedych neatly folded the newspaper and said:

We had a conversation about this in our council. They say that some homeless person showed up in our town. And why he was brought to us is incomprehensible to the mind. Our place is small, outside, from the main line there is only a branch. We argued - why not catch him? So again - where are you going to get him? It is impossible to go to court, as long as no misconduct has been noticed for him. We do not have a homeless home, and to send to the city is a fuss. The secretary said that he must be homeless and would soon run away himself, because here he was not interested in him: neither the public at the station, nor the crowd on the street - there was no one to steal a wallet from his pocket.

He rushed to the fence of Valka's garden and almost collided with his forehead with Valka climbing over to meet.

And I, brother, what I know! - said, catching his breath, Yashka.

No, you better listen to what I know.

What can you know about! You know about the uninteresting, and I about the interesting.

No, I know about the most interesting things.

I know what interesting things you know about. Probably about who threw our dive onto the channel? So this is what, but I know!

You know nothing. Well, let's pledge to fight: if you know it’s more interesting, I’ll give you two arrows with soldering, and if I’m more interesting, then you give me ... a knife.

Look how clever you are! .. The knife is almost new, it has only one blade broken, and more than half of the second is left ... Do you want me to give you a cartridge?

What is he to me? I have three of mine.

So yours are empty, but I will give you a shot; if you throw him into a fire in the woods, he will go off as soon as possible.

OK. Chur - so! Speak. Otherwise, you will see that mine is taking, and you will say that you know the same about it, so as not to give it away.

So how then?

Both boys stood for a while, thinking, then Yashka clicked his tongue and said:

That's how! A nail on you and scribble it on the fence about what you have, and then I'll scribble in another place, here it will already be without deception.

They both puffed for a long time, crossing out the lopsided letters.

After a minute, both were laughing.

Yes, we have about the same thing. Only I have it written "about the homeless", and yours "about the homeless raider." Why, however, is he a raider?

Or maybe they will ask where, - doubting the words of a comrade, said Yashka, - or they will steal apples in the orchards, and so they eat.

Well, they will "ask"! You will also say ... But who will give such scary ones? No, you trust me that a raider. Simka Petukhov met him today. Simka says that when he jumps out of the pit near the brick sheds and shouts: "Put out everything that is," and he himself waves a weight; and the weight is heavy - ten pounds.

Well, ten?

Honestly, ten. Simka barely leaked. He would, he says, entered into battle with him, but he was without a weapon, a stick - and that one was not at hand.

Or maybe he's lying, Simka? What to rob from him? I myself saw through the window how he ran past. He was wearing only trousers up to his knees, and even that shirt was not.

The last argument somewhat confused Valka, but, not wanting to give up, he answered evasively:

I don’t know why, but only the raiders always start a conversation with these words, they already have such a habit.

Valka! - said Yashka after a little thought. - And what about now ... boys? Come on, everyone will get cold feet.

They will definitely get cold feet. A little evening, go, and they will be afraid to go out of the gate.

I ... - Valka smiled proudly. - I what! I myself ... I'll sharpen my penknife today and tie it to my belt with a string under my shirt. So I will walk like a Circassian. Let him just try to poke his nose!

And I'll take the head with which they play holes. It is strong, oak. Come early tomorrow morning under the window and shout out to me. Just don’t shout, like yesterday, at the top of your lungs, so that my mother even jumped out of bed - she thought, said that it was a fire or some kind of flurry.

Don't ... I'm quiet.

Valka ... - asked Yashka before leaving. - And why are they so black? .. As the mother says, worse than the devil.

Because they spend the night under bridges or in cauldrons.

Why in boilers? - Yashka was even more surprised. - What interest is there in the boiler to spend the night?

Which? - Valka thought. - And such that if you put him in bed, then he cannot close his eyes, but it is imperative that in the cauldron. This is their nature.

In the following week, there was considerable talk and gossip among the boys of the town. This homeless man, apparently, actually turned out to be a real robber.

For example, on the night from Saturday to Sunday, Aunt Pelageya's orchard was completely cleared of apples. In the priest's house, glass is shattered by a stone that has flown in from nowhere. And what is even worse - Sychiha's goat disappeared. That is, all the nooks and crannies were searched, all wastelands, but the goat is gone and gone ...

Yashka understood everything. Well, apples, for example, in reserve. In glass with a stone - just for mischief. Well, what about the goat? They don't eat any skins from him, or meat.

Eat-u-ut! - Valka confirmed with enthusiasm. - Ordinary people do not eat, but they all eat as it is. Such is their nature.

What did you mutter to me, - Yashka got angry, - nature and nature! In your opinion, maybe they are eating raw materials.

And raw materials and stuff! - Valka began to assure with even greater passion. - Simka told me that when he was in the city - he saw this! There is a tradeswoman with a basket, and the homeless swooped in ... once ... once, and nothing was left of her.

From a tradeswoman?

Yes, not from a tradeswoman, but from a basket, with rolls there or with pies.

So after all, this is a pie - a pie, it is delicious, and then a goat - ugh!

Valka looked around, walked closer to his comrade and said in a mysterious whisper:

Yashka! And Styopka is tracking us down. Honestly. I went to the Grafsky. Suddenly, as smoothly pulled me to turn around. I looked closely. I looked, Stepkin's head was sticking out from behind the bushes and peering out after me intently. I deliberately took yes and turned into a ravine to a vacant lot, and from there home.

Well, no, not by accident. That way he looks and looks straight. And I look - a bush swayed nearby ... there must have been someone else from their party sitting there.

So you haven't been there?

And what about him there, hungry?

Never mind, they brought him a lot of bread last time and water too. Will be alive until tomorrow. And tomorrow we'll go either early in the morning or later in the evening, when the boys are less noticeable. Wow, how carefully we must act, otherwise they will cover! There are two of us, and there are four of them. If only we could befriend someone else.

Whom to make friends with? You make him friends today, and he will blurt out all of them tomorrow. What then? Then they will certainly kill him.

They will definitely kill.

Returning home, behind the gardens, Yashka ran into his inveterate enemy, Styopka.

The meeting was unexpected for both. But the opponents noticed each other from afar, and therefore, without losing their dignity, it was impossible to turn aside.

Having approached three steps, the enemies stopped and silently, carefully examined each other. Styopka had a stick - therefore, the advantages were on his side. Looking around, Styopka spat contemptuously and masterfully on the grass. Yashka whistled no less contemptuously.

Why are you whistling?

Why are you spitting?

I'll whistle for you! Why are you hunting our cat with arrows?

And let him not climb into someone else's garden. When our Wolf ran into your yard, why did you throw bricks at it?

And where did you go with the Wolf? You're lying that someone poisoned him. You yourself hid him somewhere, because we filed a lawsuit against him for strangled chickens. Only you won't fool us ... Wait, we'll get to the bottom of you soon!

Four for two, found!

Eh, and cowards! "Four"! Vaska was also counted when he was only nine years old.

Well, that's nine. He's as fat as a hog ... and you are all pigs.

The last remark seemed so offensive that Styopka grabbed a clay ball from the ground and threw it at Yashka with all his might.

And if the bloody duel was not destined to take place, and if Yashka did not fall on the battlefield at the hands of a better armed enemy, it was only because the latter suddenly screamed wildly and ran without looking back.

Assuming that he was cowardly, Yashka uttered a war cry - and was about to pursue the enemy, when suddenly he heard a low laugh behind him.

He turned around and immediately understood the real reason for Styopka's hasty disappearance.

Near an elderberry bush stood a small black boy dressed in rags, in whom Yashka easily guessed the thunderstorm of all the boys of the town, the hero of recent events - a homeless raider.

And immediately Yashka realized that he had died completely and irrevocably. He wanted to run, but his legs did not obey him. He wanted to scream, but realized that it was useless, because there was no one around. Then, deciding to desperately defend himself, he became defensive.

The little boy in rags continued to laugh, and this laugh confused Yashka even more.

What are you doing? he asked, turning his tongue with difficulty.

Nothing, - he answered. - What are you, like roosters - flew into each other?

The boy parted the bushes and found himself next to Yashka.

"Now he will take out the weight," he thought with horror and took a step back.

However, instead of attacking Yashka, the stray fell on the grass and, slapping his hand on the ground, said:

Why did you stand up like a pillar. Sit down.

Yashka sat down. The stray put his hand into his pocket and, to Yashka's great amazement, took out a small live sparrow and brought it to his mouth.

Will you eat it? - Yashka exclaimed indignantly.

The stray inquiringly raised his small bright green eyes to Yashka, breathed warmth at the sparrow and answered:

Do they eat sparrows? Sparrows do not eat and do not eat jackdaws either. The dove is another matter. If you bake a pigeon in coals, it tastes good! I hit them with a slingshot.

He tucked the sparrow into the bosom of a tattered woman's katsaveika and, handing Yashka a half-smoked cigarette, suggested:

Come on, smoke it.

Mechanically Yashka took the butt and, not knowing what to do with it, asked timidly:

Why did you eat the goat?

Goat ... Sychinny. Our guys say that you rested him on grub.

The stray slapped his hands on his sides and laughed loudly. And while he laughed, the numbness began to disappear from Yashka, and the homeless person presented himself to him in a completely different light. Yashka laughed himself, then jumped up and shook his hand, because the burned-out cigarette butt painfully burned his fingers.

Having calmed down, we moved closer to each other.

What's your name? - asked the homeless.

Me Yashkoy. And you?

And me Dergach.

Why Dergachom?

Why are you Yashkoy?

Here's more to say, too. Jacob was such a saint, and they celebrate the name day. And there shouldn't be such a saint ... Dergach ...

And I don't give a damn what shouldn't.

And to me, - Yashka confessed after a little thought. “Only if you say that in front of your mother, she’s behind the ear.” Father, he’s nothing, he himself doesn’t like passion like saints - supposedly everything is parasites. And mother - oo-oo! About anything else, but about this and do not hint. Once I poured oil from the icon lamp - to grease the wolf's paw, so that was something ...

Beaten? Dergach asked sympathetically.

So it was necessary, - he answered and took a deep breath.

This heavy, bitter sigh, behind which, it seemed, was hidden something large, unspoken, for some reason, as if warmth washed over Yashka.

Let's be friends, Dergach? - unexpectedly for himself, Yashka sincerely suggested. - I'll bring you with Valka - with my friend. Good ... just lies a lot. And then ... - Here Yashka hesitated. - Then we'll tell you an interesting thing. And how fun it will be to live, Dergach.

Dergach said nothing. He lay with his face exposed to the reflections of the crimson, fading horizon. And it seemed to Yashka that Dergach was deeply saddened by something not childish.

However, noticing Yashka's gaze on himself, Dergach quickly turned around and said, standing up:

Get the makhorka from your father tomorrow ... and bring it here, otherwise you have raised it all for me ... I will wait here at this time.

And, without saying goodbye, he parted the bushes and disappeared, leaving Yashka to reflect on the strange meeting and the strange new comrade.

The house is quiet. Coals crackled in the samovar. Yashka planes a wooden plank. Nefedych plunged into reading. From behind an unfolded sheet of newspaper, his red forehead is visible, damp after the fifth glass of tea. Nyurka makes a doll hat. The mother is busy in the kitchen.

No mom!

Well, that idol must have knocked over.

"This idol," that is, Yashka, sits and puffs, ironing the small board, and pretends that the conversation does not concern him.

Are they talking to you? Are you knocked over? the mother repeats angrily.

Yashka, reluctantly and without stopping from work, answers:

If I, Mom, knocked over, everything would be on the floor, and since the floor is dry, it means it would not be knocked over.

And the dog will take you apart! - the mother is even more irritated. - He did not take, this one did not overturn, why did he dry up, or what? Father! Throw down your newspaper! Who, it turns out, took something?

Nefedych slowly folds the newspaper and, obviously hearing only the end of the phrase, answers out of place:

Indeed ... And who would have thought. Again they took it, but how cleverly it is that you will not dig in.

Who are they? Who needs this sour soup?

Not soup ... what kind of soup? - Nefedych answers, looking around in confusion and with annoyance. - I say, the conservatives again sculpted power.

Convinced that no one was going to get any sense out, the mother spat and began to rattle the dishes. And Nefedych, feeling the desire to talk, continued:

And it would seem that their time has passed. But no, they are still twisting. Let's say, for example, our count. His estate was burned down, he himself staggers abroad somewhere. And all, come on, dreams of how to return the old. Yes, even not to dream! Take the estate, for example - what was life for him there? Picture - what's inside, so outside. Some greenhouses were worth something. And what was not there - and orchids, and tulips, and roses, and strawberries for Christmas ... The palm tree was even huge, more than two fathoms. They were discharged specially from the Caucasus, from near Batum. I say to him: "Your Excellency, where are we going to go to such a colossus - this whole greenhouse will have to be broken!" And he replies: "Never mind, you plant it right in the ground, and every year, for the cold weather near it, make a special building of glass, and by spring we will dismantle it again." Well, they took it apart. It was a beautiful palm tree. Then the count gave me twenty-five rubles for leaving ... just in May.

Here's still crazy, old. Did we really have a wedding in May? The wedding was played just after the trio.

I don’t know, after the Trinity or after what, but only in May we then just planted the Levkoi.

What are you telling me! - the mother says, suddenly irritated, as always. - Look at the metrics, they lie behind the goddess.

I have nothing to watch. I already remember. Even then, the senior barchuk had just arrived from the cadet corps on vacation and the photographer was filming him under a palm tree. I still have this card somewhere ... Yashka, did I show you this card?

I saw it a hundred times, - Yashka answers.

The mother, indignant, throws up her hands and climbs for the metrics for the goddess.

For a long time she cannot find the paper she needs. During this time, her ardor cools down somewhat, for, having estimated in her mind, she begins to remember that the trinity in the year when the wedding was, as if it really was early and fell on May. But here another circumstance distracts her attention.

No mom!

Father! Surely you haven't touched the candles?

I haven't touched it for twenty-five years, ”Nefedych humbly confirms. - I haven't touched it since the day of the wedding itself.

And I saw them last week. Where did they go? Probably, Yashka put it somewhere again.

Yashka, since the question is not addressed directly to him, continues to sniff silently over the board.

Yashka! You bastard must have burned out the candles?

Yashka finishes his work, puts the knife on the table and answers seriously, but at the same time, looking at his mother a little slyly:

We, mothers, were supplied with electricity on Lenin's orders, so it’s light for me with him and without your candles.

So where did they go? Here are some more wonderful things! Nobody poured out the borscht, nobody took the candles, and there is nothing on the spot. What are you going to do with them here!

In the early morning, when everyone in the house was still asleep, Yashka's blond whirlwinds emerged from the window. Seeing Valka, impatiently waiting near the fence, Yashka jumped down onto the wet grass, and both boys disappeared into the raspberry-tree. A minute later they emerged from there, and Yashka carefully carried a large clay pot tied up in a dirty rag.

Having got out of the gardens, the guys quickly rushed along the path leading past bushes and ravines to the ruins of "Grafsky".

On the way, Yashka talked about yesterday's meeting:

And he has no weights at all, and he has a sparrow in his pocket ... and they don't eat goats, and all this is the boys out of fear. And today we will go to him together. If he makes friends with us, he will stop us from Stepka's company. He is strong, and he doesn’t care. And then, if he blows someone up, then there is no one to complain about him, and just about us - and to the mother.

Why is he homeless? So, for his own interest or home does he have no one?

I don’t know! I haven’t asked yet, but it’s unlikely, for the sake of interest: for the homeless, after all, life is hard. I’ll grow up, learn, go to a factory or where to serve, but where will he go? He will have nowhere to go at all.

The grove greeted the boys with morning noise, the perky hubbub of birds whistling and the warm steamy smell of drying grass.

Here are the ruins - silent, majestic. There is emptiness in the holes of the dark windows. Old walls smell like mold. A huge pile of rubble from a collapsed column is piled up at the main entrance. In some places, young bushes were breaking through the cornices gnawed by the winds and rains.

Diving into a crack in the stone fence and making their way through a thicket of weeds and wormwood that reached their shoulders, the guys stopped in front of a continuous curtain of wildly growing wild ivy. A prying eye would not have discerned any passage here, but the guys quickly and confidently climbed onto the half-rotten trunk of a felled linden tree, parted the foliage, and a window opened in front of them, emerging from a narrow, well-like room without a roof.

Climbing the ladder, they found themselves in a large room on the second floor, from the windows of which one could see a piece of the Green River and the path leading to the place.

From here they got to the balcony, went straight to the roof, further down through the skylight. It was quite dark here, because this room had obviously served as a storeroom, and iron shutters with rusted bolts locked the windows tightly.

Yashka fumbled with his hand somewhere. He took out a stub of a gilded wedding candle with a bow and lit it.

An iron door appeared in the corner. Having reached her, Valka pulled the brace.

The rusty hinges wept bitterly, creaked, and the guys found themselves in a large semi-basement with narrow windows overlooking the surface of a pond filled with algae.

And at once, in greeting to the boys, a cheerful, fervent squeal was heard from the corner.

Wolf, Teen Wolf, Teen Wolf! - the guys shouted, rushing to the dog tied by the collar. - I missed ... hungry. Look, I've eaten the bread all the way to the top, and not a bit of water in the trough.

The wolf squealed and wagged its tail as it was untied. Then he jumped near the pot, managed to lick Yashkin's cheek and almost knocked Valka off his feet, leaning his paws on his back.

Wait a minute, you fool ... let the pot be untied ... Well, bust it.

The dog quickly ran its muzzle into the sour borscht and eagerly began lapping.

The basement was dry and spacious. In the corner lay a large armful of wilted grass.

Here there was a secret refuge of children who hid here the criminal strangler of foreign chickens - the Wolf's dog.

Waiting for the Wolf to be fed up, the guys fell on an armful of grass and began to discuss the situation.

It's hard to get food, - said Yashka. - Wow, how difficult it is! Mother missed borscht yesterday. And the Wolf is still growing ... Look, he has already devoured almost everything. Well, where can you get enough of it!

Me too, - Valka assented sadly. - Mother saw once, as I drag the crusts, let's swear. She just didn’t guess why. I thought that the crooked delivery man could change for steamed pears. What to do now? Can't you release it yet?

No, not yet. Soon the court will be about the Stepkin chickens. Mom is called, and me as a witness.

Can they go to jail?

Well, to jail! They will say, give money for the chickens. And where can you get them, money. And for what only they have money, they are already rich, there is a shop in the bazaar.

The wolf came up, licking his lips, and lay down beside him, resting his big eared head on Yashkina’s knees.

We lay in silence.

Yashka, - asked Valka, - and why, in your opinion, such a domina?

Yes, huge. If you go around it all ... well, let's say, at least look into every room, and then half a day is necessary. And why did the counts have such houses? After all, there were about a hundred rooms here before?

Well, not a hundred, but sixty — that's what my dad said. Counts have every room for something special. In one they sleep, in the other they eat, the third for guests, in the fourth for dancing.

And for everything separately?

For everything. They cannot live like that, for example, a room and a kitchen. My father told me that they had a separate room for fish. They let fish into such a huge vat, and then they sit and fish with fishing rods.

Oh you! And they catch the big ones?

What they let in, they catch them, even a pood of money.

Valka closed his eyes sweetly, imagining a pood carp being pulled out, then asked:

Have you ever seen, Yashka, living counts?

No, - Yashka confessed. - I was only three years old, as they were all completely worn out. I saw it on the card. The dad has. There is a palm tree on it - a tree like that, and next to it there is a graphene, so older than me, and in uniform, like white ones, is called a cadet. And such a squishy one. If someone gave it to the back of the neck, he would have piled it in his pants.

Who would give?

Well, at least me.

You ... - Here Valka looked at Yashka with respect. - You are so healthy. And if I gave, then would I heap?

You ... - Yashka, in turn, glanced at the puny figure of his comrade, thought and answered: - I would have piled it all the same. The old man says that the counts will never resist against the common people.

And what kind of fruit grows on a palm tree? Tasty?

Did not eat. It must be delicious, if it is on a palm tree. It's not an apple tree for you, it costs a thousand rubles.

Valka closed his eyes, licking his lips:

That would be a bite, Yashka! At least a little ... otherwise you will live that way all your life and never bite.

I will bite. I will grow up, enroll in the Komsomol, and from there in the sailors. And the sailors different countries they go and see everything, and all sorts of adventures with them happen. Do you love adventure, Valka?

I love. Only to stay alive, otherwise there are adventures from which you can die.

And I love everyone. I love passion as heroes! There the armless Panfil-Budennovite has an order. It will take your breath away as he begins to tell about the past.

And how, Yashka, can you become a hero?

Panfil says that for this you need to drive the whites mercilessly and not give up before them.

And if the reds drive?

And if it’s red, then you’re white yourself, and I’m going to crack you in the bowler hat, then you won’t bother.

Valka blinked his eyes in fright:

So I on purpose. Am I for whites? Just ask the Pioneer Bear.

I didn’t really like it in the school detachment, ”Yashka said a little later. - In other detachments, they go to the camps for the summer, to the forest. And in school there are more girls. And all the poems are taught there, about school and about learning. I walked, walked and stopped. What poems can be in the summer! In summer, you need to fish, or let a snake, or walk away.

And I was not accepted into the school detachment at all. Seryozha Kuchnikov complained about me, as if I had shaken the pears at Semenikha's. Yabeda looked for such a thing, and when he accidentally broke the Gavrilovs' window with a snowball last year, he didn’t confess, but they thought about Shurka — his mother tore it out. Is it good to do that too?

Nothing! So by the winter the sawmill will start working again, and we will sign up for the local detachment. There are funny guys. There, if there is a fight sometimes, then nothing. Well, we had a fight - we made up. Is it possible for the boys without this? And in the school squad - just about that - they immediately discuss it!

Yashka spat angrily and got up:

We must go. You sit still, and I go upstairs - I run to the Wolf for water.

Yashka returned ten minutes later. His face was concerned.

Look, ”he said, holding out his palm.

Well, why should I look? Cigarette butt ...

How did he get into the upper room?

So, maybe it's old, - Valka suggested uncertainly. - Maybe it still remains from the old regime.

Well, no, not from the old one. It says "2nd State Factory" over there.

Then, it means that it was the Stepkins guys who were already diving on top. I know that Seryozha Smirnov smokes secretly with them.

Of course they are, - Yashka agreed. But then he looked at the cigarette butt, on which the "Highest grade" was embossed in gold, shook his head and said: "But why would Seryozha Smirnov suddenly smoke such expensive cigarettes?"

The boys looked at each other in perplexity. Then they tied the Wolf tightly, told him to be silent, And, quickly getting out, ran home.

Dergach puffed on the smoke of a cigarette, rolled out of makhorka brought by Yashka, and, pointing his finger at Valka, asked:

So he told you that I ate the goat? Will say too! The goat is still lying in the ravine - he has broken his leg. I shoved him another piece of grass, so as not to die of hunger.

Dergach, - Yashka asked after some hesitation, - where do you live?

Dergach chuckled:

I live with myself. Where I’ll stick up for the night, there in the morning I’ll wake up.

Do you have any relatives?

Yes, yes, to climb far.

Yashka, bewildered by this manner of answering, said reproachfully:

And why are you, Dergach, snarling! We're not interrogating you, but if I ask, it's out of friendship.

Dergach still looked disbelievingly at the guys and answered evasively:

And who knows, whether from friendship, or why else. I once lived under a bridge in Rostov. Some whip sat down on me. The same, like me, rags rags. He treated me to sausage and gave me a cigarette. Well, then and there, and began to ask about my life. I foolishly take him and tell him. And how I got lost from my father and mother in the years of famine, and what kind of province I am, what locality, how I live. He even told about the case when a butcher's shop was robbed. Three days later, Cartilage himself comes up to me, but like a slap on the neck! And he pokes the newspaper in my face. "You, he says, why did the tongue dissolve ?!" And I know literacy. I looked at the newspaper and gasped. Honest mother! Everything up to the word that I said was printed in the newspaper - and the nickname, and the name, and where I came from, and, most importantly, about the butcher's shop. Cool then beat me up for that Cartilage.

We will not publish it in the newspaper, ”Valka spoke up, frightenedly pushing away such an accusation. - We won't even print a single line. I've never even seen it printed, and he hasn't seen it either.

Dergach was lying on his back and thinking about something. So, at least, Yashka decided, because when a person lies, staring at the starry sky, he cannot help but think.

Dergach, - Yashka asked unexpectedly, - and who is he to you?

What is "he"?

At the mention of this name, Dergach somehow twitched all over, quickly turned around and asked, perplexed and angry:

What other Cartilage?

You yourself just spoke about him.

Ah ... did you say? - again turning onto his back, said Dergach absentmindedly. - So ... there is only one man ... Oooh, and a man! - Here Dergach raised himself, leaning on his elbows, his face was twisted, and, tossing his cigarette butt away, he added caustically: - Wow, and a scoundrel ... wow, and a bandit!

Real? - Valka asked, wide open with amazed curious eyes, and added with undisguised regret: - But I haven't seen anything - neither a living count, nor a real bandit.

Dergach shrugged his shoulders contemptuously:

And I saw the Count too.

Certainly not dead.

Valka, as always in moments of excitement, closed his eyes and, imbued with involuntary respect for the ragamuffin, said with ill-concealed envy:

And you are happy, Dergach, that you have seen everything.

Dergach looked at Valka in surprise, perhaps even angrily:

Wow, if you had such happiness, you would howl like a cow in front of a wolf! No, don't give anyone such happiness ... Eh, if only for me ... - Here Dergach waved his hand and fell silent.

And again it seemed to Yashka that Dergach had some great, unspoken grief in his soul. And not knowing, in fact, why, he put his hand on Dergach's shoulder and said:

Nothing, Dergach! Maybe somehow everything will work out.

Dergach started back, but, meeting his eyes with the boy's seriously friendly gaze, bowed his head slightly and answered somehow muffledly:

It would be nice if everything worked out, but I just don't know.

And from that evening, a thread of inexplicably strong friendship stretched between Yashka and Dergach.

Dergach's idea was downright brilliant. Initiated into the mystery of the boys and their difficulties in delivering food to the Wolf, he quickly found a way out.

At dawn one could see Yashka and Valka in the garden, near the old bathhouse. They hastily brought out from there a large cast-iron cauldron, in which mother used to dilute the lye for washing clothes.

The fact that the guys had dragged this boiler not across the yard, but passed it right over the fence to the vegetable gardens, showed that all this was being done without the knowledge of the household.

Having got out onto the path, the boys grabbed the cauldron by the handles and hastily disappeared into the bushes.

If we could trace their further path, then one could see them running past the garbage dump and disappearing into the sinkhole of a deep desert ravine. It was quiet and windless here, only the hum of clumsy bumblebees and the incessant rumble of cheerful grasshoppers filled the morning silence.

The guys stopped to rest.

Well, we did it smartly! After all, it was necessary to pull out such a colossus. And in the evening we will pull it back again, and everything will be sewn-covered.

In the evening it will be more difficult, Yashka, there will be more people.

Nothing, we'll manage somehow! Well, let's go.

They turned into one of the innumerable branches of the ravine bed and soon saw the smoke of a fire and Dergach, busily managing by the fire.

Dergach held a knife in his hand and a bundle raw grass wiped off a bloody blade. Nearby lay a freshly skinned goat skin and a carcass cut into pieces.

And I really thought that you would not come, - said Dergach to the guys who approached. - Look how I butchered the meat. There is now enough for the Wolf for a week. It is only necessary to boil it harder and to spill more salt so as not to spoil. Well, let's get to work, live!

Dergach gave orders skillfully and confidently. Valka was sent to collect brushwood. Yashka hammered in the boiler racks with a stone, and Dergach himself cleaned the crossbar from branches.

Guys! - Valka said excitedly, throwing a huge pile of brushwood on the ground. - And there are so many lizards below! There are huge ones, let's catch them later.

You can catch it later, but now let's throw it up, light the fire.

The flame, furiously devouring the dry foliage of the thrown branches, shot up high and flashed with warmth on the faces of the boys, already flushed.

Chunks of meat were poured into a cauldron filled with water from a nearby stream and nearly a pound of salt was poured.

So ... done now. From her, the Wolf will become so fat that he will soon become a calf.

They all fell on the grass. The sun has already dried the dew. It smelled of mint, wormwood and honey.

They lay at first in silence. High in the sky, carefree, happy larks were ringing, and somewhere far away, a herd driven into the meadows bellowed.

Valka! - Yashka said lazily, without turning his head. - I found a card ... Well, what kind! With the palm tree that I promised to show you.

Come on.

Valka raised himself, examining the faded photograph, and his face took on a somewhat disappointed expression.

Well, really! I saw such a palm tree in the tavern through the window, but I did not know what it was called. And the count was not so-so, somehow fidgety, only the nose protruded forward with a hook and a quadrangular chin.

It's all like that in their family. The old man said that all their kind have such noses, like hawks, so it went by inheritance.

Come on, I'll take a look! - Dergach responded, basking in the sun.

He raised a photographic card to his eyes and at the same second gave a little cry and quickly turned over.

Serpent! - Valka screamed, jumping up in fright.

Yashka jumped up too.

But Dergach did not move, grabbed the photograph with both hands and eagerly glared at it.

Where is the snake? What are you lying, fool? - Yashka got angry with Valka. - I'll give you a slap so that you know how to scare you away.

Valka blinked his eyes guiltily:

So is it really me! This is Dergach ... why did he turn around like a stung.

Yashka looked at Dergach with surprise. The man's face was agitated, and his eyes glittered.

Who is this? - Dergach asked, pointing to the card.

This ... this is the count here ... that is, the son of the counts. They were defeated in the revolution. And where we hide the Wolf - this was their estate.

For a long time - almost all day - the children were busy in the ravine. They collected branches, played with a peg, caught four lizards below and tied them in an amusing rag.

They had just finished cooking goat meat when Valka, who had found wild raspberries on top, rolled head over heels down.

Guys, - he whispered excitedly, - Styopka, Mishka and Petka are walking along the path from the forest ... they must have gone mushroom picking. I wish we could cover them!

No, - answered Yashka, overcoming the desire to beat off his sworn enemies. - If we both jump out, they will fill us, because there are more of them. And if with Dergach, then they will find out and tell everyone that we are at the same time with him.

Let me go alone, ”Dergach suggested fervently, and, grabbing a stick, he, like a lizard, began to make his way upstairs.

Valka and Yashka climbed to the edge of the ravine and, slightly sticking their heads out, prepared to observe, and in extreme cases, no matter what, come to the aid of a comrade.

Dergach stopped behind a bush near the path and began to watch. As soon as Stepkin's company approached, Dergach went out and, slightly spreading his legs, blocked their way.

Such an unexpected appearance of a dangerous enemy made the boys dumbfounded. But, realizing at once that there were three of them, and he was one, they decided to defend themselves.

Throw the basket! - Dergach shouted defiantly.

Instead of answering, Styopka put down the basket and bent down for the stone; the other two did the same.

Oh, so you are! - Dergach shouted angrily, and, with a deafening whistle, he rushed with a raised stick at the enemies.

Blood! - someone suddenly shouted in horror, seeing the red hands of Dergach.

And, probably suggesting that the terrible Dergach had just committed a bloody massacre of some traveler, all three, without waiting for them to suffer the same fate, rushed to flee in panic, pursued by Dergach's mocking whistle.

I've seen, - Valka yelled with delight, - how he is one for three! Ouch! Ouch! How good, Yashka, that we have become friends with Dergach! - And Valka, beside himself with delight, began to roll on the grass.

Dergach went down to the fire, silently threw the captured basket and lay down again.

How great are you! - said Yashka, sitting down next to him.

Dergach smiled slightly, waved his hand, as if saying that there was no need to talk about such a trifle, and again, taking out a photograph, began to examine it. Yashka poured the mushrooms onto the grass, and threw the old basket into the fire.

Why are you?

You can't go home with their basket, they can find out. And then we will pour the mushrooms into an empty cauldron and take them home, and then we will pour them into our baskets. And if mothers start cursing: where did they disappear? - we will say that we went for mushrooms. What kind of mushrooms ... white, there are not many birch trees.

It was already getting dark when Dergach, having strung pieces of meat on a string, set off to carry food to the Grafskoye, and the guys, grabbing the cauldron, dragged themselves to the house.

They safely passed the path, met no one in the gardens, and already in the garden ran into Yashkina's mother, who was watering the beds.

What are you idols doing? Where did it take you with the cauldron? - menacingly approaching, she asked.

Valka, as always in such cases, quickly set in motion, and Yashka was so dumbfounded that he could only find an answer:

We, mom, are looking for mushrooms ... we, look, what white ones ...

Is it with a cauldron for mushrooms? - the mother was dumbfounded. - Why are you lying!

Having received a slap, Yashka howled not so much in pain as as usual, and flew into the yard.

Mother went to the cauldron, looked into it and, seeing a large pile of mushrooms, was even more perplexed:

You are my priests! What is it? I thought he was lying, that behind the mushrooms ... but he really ... - And she helplessly threw up her hands. - But only ... but where have you seen that in the forest with a two-pound cauldron for mushrooms ... Yes, they, God forbid, have not really gone crazy?

That evening Yashka was no longer released from the house. Valka turned around near his window, whistled. But from there suddenly the angry face of Yashkina's mother looked out and her stern voice was heard:

I'll whistle for you! I'll whistle for you, you piggy! I'll throw a bucket of slops on your head right now!

He took with him a "cat", that is, an anchor of nails, suspended from a thin string, and rushed to the river.

The sun has already disappeared. Clouds of warm steam spread over the blackened river. Valka went down to the old twisted rake, stretched out near the bank overgrown with sedge, took the end of the string in his left hand, swung the "cat" with his right and, having marked the place, quickly threw it forward.

The water gurgled. Alarmed frogs flopped from the shore in fright. Valka pulled the end of the string - the string was not stretched.

Not hooked! - he guessed and threw the "cat" a little to the right.

Aha ... now there is!

His heart fluttered like a bird entangled in the bushes at night when the clumsy twigs of a dive appeared above the surface of the water.

Eh, if only a pike ... or a burbot for three pounds.

He grabbed the dive, raised it to his eyes and, not paying attention to the trickles of water flowing down his pants, began to examine the catch:

Two roaches ... three ruffs, three saigas and two crayfish.

Valka sighed in disappointment, strung the fish on the kukan. Rakov threw it into the river, threw the dive to another place and, turning the "cat", climbed up.

It was already night. The edge of a huge moon peered out from behind the forest like a red arc. And, illuminated by its faint radiance, the ruins of the count's estate now seemed again a majestic castle fast asleep.

But what is it? Valka jumped, as if he had caught his foot on a snag, and dropped the kukan. One of the windows of the sleeping castle lit up from the inside with a faint light.

"What a thing? - thought Valka. - Who is it there? .. Aha! Yes, of course, Dergach lit a candle. But why is he wandering there? How he, a fool, cannot understand what the boys can see from here and become interested!" "

Valka bent down, looking for the dropped kukan. When he raised his head, the light in the window was gone.

And Valka was attacked by the doubt that it was not a moonlit reflection on an accidentally preserved fragment of glass that he mistook for fire.

“I’ll have to ask Dergach tomorrow,” he decided. “If he didn’t light the fire, then it seemed to me.”

In the morning, Yashka was dressed in new trousers, a festive shirt, and from the chest her mother took out a cap that smelled of mothballs.

Mom ... why would you want a cap? - Yashka protested. “It’s not autumn or winter now, and it’s so hot.”

Keep your mouth shut! - interrupted his mother. - You want the judge to look at you and say: what a bully, all disheveled! Yes, I’ll give my face a better wash. Yes, if they ask you what they will, then answer modestly and don’t sniff.

In court they met Stepka's mother, a shopkeeper, dressed in an old-fashioned plush jacket, and Styopka, so combed back that it seemed that his eyes even moved to his forehead.

The mothers sat down in silence, without greeting. Styopka managed to show Yashka his tongue, to which he turned his neatly folded fig in response.

The proceedings have begun on this intricate case of counterclaims for damages.

The first is about the cost of three chickens strangled by a dog named "Wolf". The second is about the cost of two ducklings and a piece of boiled meat, stolen by a cat named "Oblique". At first it was impossible to understand anything. It seemed as if no one choked the chickens, and no one dragged away the meat. Then it suddenly turned out that the chickens themselves were to blame, for they wandered into someone else's territory and tore apart the beds with seedlings. And he ate the ducklings and the meat was stolen not by the "Oblique" cat that Stepkin, but by the "Tailless" Sychikhin, who had long had a reputation as a suspicious person engaged in shady affairs. However, the brisk Sychiha immediately swore an oath that "Tailless" was not her cat at all, but that he lived in the attic of her bath-house without permission, taking care of his own food, and she could not bear any responsibility for him.

Witness Yakov Babushkin, - asked the judge, Yegor Semenovich, a kind old man with laughing eyes, - answer my question: were you in the yard when the Wolf dog rushed at the neighboring chickens?

I was, - Yashka answers.

What did you do?

We ... - Yashka hesitates.

Answer ... don't be afraid, the judge encourages.

Valka and I fired from a roguel.

From what?

From the roguel, - Yashka continues, embarrassed. - A stick like that with rubber, you will put a stone in it, and it will crack!

Where will it crack? - the judge is surprised.

And where to aim, there it will crack, - explains Yashka and finally gets lost, hearing the hum of restrained laughter.

So! .. And what did you do when you saw that the Wolf dog was strangling the neighboring chickens?

So, comrade judge, they themselves climbed into our beds ...

I'm not talking about that! You answer, what did you do when you saw that the dog was choking the chickens?

We ... so when we approached, the Wolf had already fled.

Were the chickens already dead?

And who knows ... maybe they weren't dead ... maybe they just froze to death.

Sit down ... Witness Stepan Surkov. Is it true that your chickens wandered into someone else's garden?

They did not wander themselves, they were deliberately enticed with grain.

Why do you think you have lured?

Necessarily beckoned. Why would they go to someone else's yard? Do they have their own, or what?

When you picked up the chickens, were they already dead?

They were all dead ... and one even lacked half a leg. As soon as my mother took them to the market to sell, then those two were nothing, but this third was forced ...

Then Stepan, suddenly feeling a poke in the side from the mother sitting next to him, suddenly fell silent.

But it's already late, and the judge asks sternly and in surprise:

So you are ... dead chickens. sold at the bazaar?

Stepkina's mother feels what a mistake her son made, and tries to wriggle out:

He's lying, comrade judge! The chickens had just been dented, but they were still alive; I killed them, of course, and sold them.

So-ak! - the judge says, drawing out his words and squinting slyly. - So, you say that you killed your live chickens and sold them in the market ... But excuse me: what then can there be a claim?

The audience laughs together, and Yashka almost squeals with pleasure. Yashka probably knows that the Wolf strangled the chickens, but after Styopka blurted out that they were sold at the bazaar, it is in no way possible for Stepka's mother to say that she sold dead chickens.

Wow! - he shouts, after a while leaving the court. - Our took.

And behind the angry shopkeeper says quietly to Styopka:

Wait, we’ll come home, I’ll pull you out, I’ll show you how to talk nonsense! - And, turning to Yashkina's mother, she screams angrily: - And you tell your tomboy not to misbehave! In the morning I open the pantry, and so I froze - lizards dart around the floor. I know who was letting this in from the garden through the window.

But Yashka tugs at his mother's hem and tells her convincingly:

Don't believe it, mom! What am I, a snake tamer, or what? I myself am afraid of all lizards and snakes worse than death.

The previous evening, Dergach, seizing the goat meat strung on a string, started to run to the "Grafsky".

The basement was already twilight. Dergach lit a candle and, throwing a piece of meat to the always hungry Wolf, lay down on an armful of hay and again took out a photograph.

So that's who he is! - Dergach whispered. - And I thought it was just his nickname ... In epaulettes ... And now what the man has reached ... So, it means that this was his entire estate ...

Dergach thrust the card into his pocket and, putting with him the warm, tightly biting Wolf, closed his eyes.

There was a dead silence under the arches of the stone basement. One could even hear the Wolf's heart beating evenly and the reeds rustling under the window on the pond.

Dergach fell asleep. He slept soundly, but restlessly. In a dream he saw a palm tree, and under a palm tree Yashka.

"Come here," Yashka called. And suddenly Dergach saw that it was not Yashka at all, but the formidable raider Cartilage himself was standing and beckoning him with his finger: "Well, come here, come here ... Why did you want to be a burglar *, and why did you abandon the stirrup?"

* A burglar (zarg.) - an apartment thief.

Dergach wanted to shout, but could not; I wanted to run, but the grass covered my legs; he lunged and ... opened his eyes.

The wolf stood nearby. It was visible how his eyes were burning with greenish lights. Dergach stroked the dog and felt that every muscle of it was springy and tense.

What are you doing? - Dergach asked in a whisper and, listening, caught a barely audible rustle somewhere far above.

“These are owls chasing bats,” he thought. “Who will come here at night.

And, hugging the dog tightly, he lay still for a little while with his eyes open, then fell asleep and did not wake up again until dawn.

Dergach answered Valka that he did not light any light in the upper rooms. But at the same time he was so embarrassed and frowned that it did not escape the eyes of the boys.

I'm thinking of moving out of here tomorrow, ”he said out of the blue.

Where to go? Why, Dergach? Do you feel bad here with us?

Dergach was silent ... It was evident that he hesitated and wanted to say something to the guys.

All the same, - he said with a sigh. - Find your home. I have both a father and a mother somewhere. As there was hunger, so I got lost from them near Odessa, and now I don’t know where they are. I think to Siberia, to the city of Barnaul, to get through, somewhere I have an aunt - she probably knows the address of her parents. Yes, the whole trouble is that I don’t know her last name, but I know that her name is Marya. Yes, I remember a little in person.

Hard to find without a surname, Dergach.

Difficult, - confirmed Valka. - In, let's take at least three neighboring houses, and even then they have four Maryas, if not even count Manka Kurkina, who is one year old, and goats, which are called Mashki. What is your father's surname, Dergach?

Elkin Pavel, and they used to call me Mitka. It was already when I involuntarily got into a homeless child, then they gave me a nickname.

Why, Dergach, are you so suddenly going to leave?

Dergach frowned again.

And because ... - he said after some thought, - I ended up here, running away from Cartilage. We are on the main line, on a branch we accidentally bumped into him. He was there with another one, and now, according to some signs, I think that they were not heading here too.

Well, what do you want? What do you want Cartilage, chief, or what?

Cartilage? - And Dergach mockingly looked at Yashka, as if surprised at the absurdity of such a question. “If the cartilage catches me, it will certainly kill me.

But why would he kill? Is there such a law for him to kill?

They have a law.

From whom - from them?

The real raiders. I ran away from the stirrup, on which they put me ... And they already have it so that whoever leaves the stirrup without permission must be killed as for treason.

What is this stirrup?

How can I tell you ... Well, a guard ... or an observer who is posted near the house for a signal while they are being robbed. So Cartilage put me down, and I ran away on purpose ... because of this, two then burned out ...

Was there a fire?

Yes, not a fire ... They burned down - that means they got caught and went to prison ... But why are you standing there, hitting your mouths?

It hurts wonderfully, Dergach, - Valka answered timidly. - And the story is so terrible, and the words are somehow incomprehensible ...

You will live with dogs - you yourself will be a dog. And how harmful this Cartilage is! How many guys he embarrassed, how many people are in correctional colonies because of him! Oh, and I'm tired of this dog's life! All the same, if I don’t at least find my home, I’ll try with all my strength to find a place somewhere - to a shoemaker as an apprentice or to a filing cabinet - somewhere, but I’ll stick to it. What is there to say? - finished Dergach and shook his shaggy head. “It’s difficult, but if you want to, you will nevertheless turn out on a good path ... Let’s stop talking about this, we’d better run to the river to catch leeches; Goat Wading has terrible ones; then we will swim, otherwise why think about grief ...

At home, mother said to Yashka:

And here your father was looking for you. Some photograph, he says, did you take.

What other photo?

Yes, ask him himself. He is rummaging in the barn.

"Here's another attack, - thought Yashka. - And what did he need it for?"

Father came out of the barn. He was covered with dust and held in his hands a pile of some yellowed papers.

Yashenka, "he said affectionately," haven't you seen where the card with the palm tree is?

Seen somewhere!

And you go and bring it to me ...

OK! - said Yashka and was about to go into the rooms, but, on the way, remembering that the card remained in Dergach's pocket, he returned. - Yes, I don’t remember, daddy, where I saw her. And why did you suddenly need it?

It is necessary, dear! And you must remember. If you remember and bring it back, I'll give you fifty dollars.

Alty-innick? - even Yashka blossomed. - Aren't you going to deceive?

I will definitely give it right away.

Yashka disappeared, wondering why his father decided to be so generous. It used to happen that you didn't always beg for a dime on Sunday, and then suddenly a whole fifty kopeck at once.

He jumped out and whistled to Valka.

Valka! Do you know where Dergach is?

He must be spending the night with the Wolf. And what?

Let's run, Valka, to "Grafskoe", I really need it. Take the card from him. My father promised to give me fifty dollars if I bring him.

It's already dark, Yashka. Until we reach, night will come at all.

Well, what a night - but fifty dollars. Tomorrow we would buy saltpeter and berthollet salt - we will make a rocket.

Well, let's run - just in one spirit. By the way, my mother went to the bathhouse.

Rushed. Yashka ran with an even, measured step, like a real runner-athlete. Valka, however, could not do without some freaks. He now quickened, then decreased his step, along the way imitated the snort of the engine, then the chug of the locomotive.

Here is the turn over the river.

Well, give me a couple ... Tu-tuu! ..

And suddenly the Valka steam locomotive gave the brake at full speed; Yashka also stopped rooted to the spot.

Valka looked in amazement at Yashka, Yashka at Valka, then both turned their heads towards the ruins of "Grafsky". There could be no doubt: a fire was burning in the corner room on the second floor.

Wow! - said Yashka, coming out of his stupor. - What else is this?

I told you! I said that Dergach lit a fire. Did you see how embarrassed he was when I asked him about the fire?

Why should he stagger on top? What was he up to there? You know what, let's sneak up and see what else he invented there.

I'm afraid to spy on something, Yashka.

Here's another thing that's scary! Tea, he is with us at the same time. And the card is also needed. Fifty rubles also do not promise every day. Today the dad promised, and the next day he will take it and think it over.

And both boys started down the path again.

What a strange and bizarre castle at night! Huge lime trees with calm peaks barely touch the moon. The gray stone of the ruins is not always distinguishable from the night fog. And the black overgrown pond, in which the stars are reflected, seems to be a deep abyss with fireflies scattered along the bottom.

How strange everything is at night, as if all things had moved from their places. You have to look for everything first. And the old linden tree seems to be not where it was, and the ivy-covered window is not in place.

Get in, Valka.

And I'll just take off my shoes so that they don't creak.

Stepping quietly with bare feet on the cold stone ladder, Yashka began to make his way upstairs, intending to find out what exactly Dergach was doing there at such a late time. He almost reached the top step when Valka inadvertently stepped on some kind of board, which creaked treacherously loudly.

And immediately, to the unspeakable horror of the boys, a deaf bass, which could not in any way belong to Dergach, said:

And as if something rustled below?

There is no one here to make noise. Who will climb here at night!

We must still block the window, the first continued. - Go downstairs, I saw a mat there, otherwise someone might see the light from the side of the river.

At these words, the boys were even more frightened, since it was necessary to go down past them. They were about to rush right through to the window, but the second voice answered:

It will cost today anyway. I don't have a spare candle to go down.

Then slowly the guys began to move back.

They got out to the window and, jumping to the ground, rushed to run with all their might, leaving even Yashkina's hidden boots unselected.

Having reached the gardens, the children, without discussing everything that had happened, agreed to meet early tomorrow and fled to their homes.

Yashka dived under the covers and, covering himself with his head, pretended to be asleep.

The father came in and asked the mother:

Is Yashka already asleep? I did not find a photograph, apparently. Oh, and it’s a pity if he doesn’t find it!

What do you need it for? - the mother, who was already falling asleep, responded from under the blanket.

That's just the point, that there is what. The photo is a pile of heaps, it is worth a penny, but they promised me an A for it. I was sitting, reading a newspaper in the gatehouse. Some unknown person approaches me. I guessed right away that he was a newcomer. He greeted and asked: "Will you be Maxim Nefedovich Babushkin?" - "I'm talking. "Very nice! I would like to talk to you. If you are not busy, then perhaps you would come with me to the next tea house," Bonanza ", and there I would explain the essence of the matter to you for a bottle of beer." And I was just going home already. "Well, I say, you can go in. Wait, I'll just lock the coachman." We went into the tea room, served us a couple of beers, and he got down to business.

It turns out that he came with a friend from the city from some society for the study of Russian antiquity. That is, they study various old buildings, estates and churches. What architect worked, in what year and in what style. And so they became interested in the count's estate. I explained to him that although I had served the count as a gardener for many years, the estate itself had been built a hundred years before me, so I can’t say anything about the architect. As for the greenhouses and the park, it was all under my supervision.

Then he began to ask me what plants were grown and what flowers. I answer him and mentioned the word about the palm tree. He does not believe: "A palm tree cannot grow in the wild in such a climate." - “How, I say, can’t? I won’t lie - I still have a photograph from it”. How his eyes sparkled ... "Sell this photograph to us," he suggests to me, "we'll give you five rubles for it. It's not for you, but for us for the collection." I just gasped - for all sorts of rubbish yes five rubles! Well, I think it’s true that you don’t know where a person’s luck falls out. And he promised to bring him ... But I just can't find it anywhere.

Fools people, - said mother, yawning. - There is nowhere to put them money? Last year, an artist from Sychiha, too, undertook to paint a portrait, and even paid her one ruble per day. Well, he would at least take a sketch of the chairman's wife, or someone else more unattractive, otherwise Sychikha - yes, even without a portrait, he is dumbfounded to look at her! Yashka will have to dress up his coat by the fall, from the old he has grown completely.

"Eh, and we do-uraki!" Thought Yashka, carefully leaning out from under the blanket. , we ought to get up to them. Maybe they would have helped in something - you see, they earned a two-hive, and we ran away.

Yashka pulled the blanket tighter and heard his father turn the switch, turning off the light.

Yashka turned on his side and closed his eyes. So he lay there for about ten minutes. A sweet slumber began to overtake him, and his thoughts began to mix, a piece of some kind of dream flashed, when suddenly he heard that something quietly banged on the floor, as if a small piece of plaster had fallen from the ceiling. A minute later, something banged again.

"Vaska the cat must be spoiling in the dark," thought Yashka and lowered his hand to the floor, looking for something that could scare the cat away. And at that very moment he felt that a small pebble, about the size of a pea, had fallen right on top of his blanket.

"Someone rushes through the window. Isn't it Valka ... But why is he so late? .."

Yashka leaned out the window. Near the black fence, he barely saw Valka hiding in the shadows. Yashka waved his hand at him, which should have meant: "Go away, I can't get out, my father and mother have just gone to bed." However, Valka stubbornly shook his head and continued to give a signal, calling Yashka.

"Here, the dog, take you!" Thought the worried Yashka.

He pulled on his pants carefully and listened. Sister Nyurka was fast asleep. Father was snoring in the next room, but mother was still tossing and turning from side to side.

Yashka silently climbed onto the windowsill, felt the ledge with his hand, and quietly descended to the foundation recess. Along the notch, he reached the corner and only then jumped into the soft ground of the strawberry beds.

What are you doing? - he went down on Valka. - Did I tell you to wake you up at night?

Instead of answering, Valka excitedly put his fingers to his lips and pulled Yashka by the sleeve.

So what are you? - Yashka asked impatiently, stopping near the bathhouse and not understanding Valka's excited state. And immediately he understood everything, or rather, he did not understand anything - at the wall of the bath he saw a Wolf tied up from somewhere.

I just wanted to go to bed, went out to recover, - Valka told, - I look, the dog is running at full swing - and straight to me. I thought I was mad, but out of fear I jumped right onto the fence. And suddenly I see that it is a Wolf.

But why did Dergach release him?

Do not know.

Here's another attack ... Look, the Wolf is all furry, he was somewhere in the water ... What to do with him now?

Let's tie him to the bathhouse for now ... And in the morning we'll bring him back. He, perhaps, escaped from Dergach.

They tied the dog up in the bathhouse ... Once again we agreed to meet early in the morning and again parted.

Yashka began to make his way home the same way. Already near the window he turned around, and it seemed to him that the top of the lilac bush that grew in the garden near the bathhouse, somehow trembled unnaturally strongly, as if it had been swayed from below. For some reason, an inexplicable uneasiness took possession of the little boy. He climbed into the room, not knowing why he locked the window and could not sleep for a long time, thinking about what had happened. Then he must have fallen asleep very soundly, because he woke up suddenly, with a jerk, from a loud noise and barking.

Yashka, - shouted the mother, - Yashka, wake up, you devil!

Yashka jumped up, thinking nothing.

The barking grew louder. It was no longer a simple barking of a dog at a passing traveler, but a desperate anxiety, turning into a frenzied screech.

Nefedych, grabbing a hunting berdanka from the wall, hastily ran out into the courtyard.

Half a minute later, the barking stopped at once, and almost immediately there was a rumble of a shot.

Yashka, not remembering himself, jumped out into the yard. Several neighbors came across to meet him. Someone said:

A man made his way into the bathhouse. Must be a thief. He stabbed the dog with a knife. Nefedych fired, but by.

And why did he sneak into the bathhouse? Why did he attack the dog?

I don’t know why, you’ll ask him.

"Well, it's night! - thought the crazed Yashka, rushing to the bathhouse. - Well, it's night today, there's nothing to say."

With a knife blow, the Wolf was harmlessly wounded in the upper part of the neck. Father and mother inflicted on Yashka the strictest questioning about how the "poisoned" dog ended up in the bathhouse.

Taking advantage of the favorable moment, Yashka frankly admitted that the Wolf was hidden by him for the time being, and kept silent about that. where exactly the Wolf was hiding. And since the lawsuit against Wolf was not approved by the judge, and besides, the dog showed itself to be a real hero, protecting the house from an unknown intruder on the last night, the Wolf was granted amnesty.

Having met with Valka, who was already aware of everything that had happened, Yashka dragged him into the garden and there, stopping in a secluded spot, put his hand into his pocket.

Look, Valka! We didn't see it last night, but this morning I found this tied to the Wolf's collar.

And Valka saw a fragment of a picture - the lower part of a photograph with a palm tree. On the reverse side there were obviously some letters drawn, but it was impossible to make out them, because the blood flowing from the neck of the wounded Wolf stained this entire side of the card.

How did it get on the Wolf's neck?

Dergach tied! He wanted to write something to us ... Maybe some misfortune happened to him. Maybe some stone fell from the wall and crushed him or he kicked his leg in the dark.

Why only half of the card?

Not deciding anything really, the guys went to "Grafsky" to ask Dergach about everything on the spot.

Near the ivy-covered wall, Yashka left Valka to look for the boots he had left yesterday, and he climbed up.

In the dark pantry he lit a match, and the cigarette butts immediately caught his eye. He raised one. It was the same cigarette butt he had found in the upper room a few days ago.

"These researchers, scientists were already here," - he thought.

The match went out. He lit the second one and pulled open the door leading to the basement — there was no one in the basement. Then Yashka got out back and whistled with a prearranged signal. A resounding echo with dozens of fake pere-whistles answered him, but Dergach did not answer.

It became clear that Dergach had disappeared.

It took two days. The children built a strong kennel for the Wolf, put him on a chain, and the Wolf officially assumed the position of the guard of Yashkin's house.

There was not a word about Dergach.

Why didn't he say goodbye to us? .. And what did he write on the back of the photo?

Yashka took out a fragment of the picture, turned it over and, deciding that there was nothing to be done here anyway, he threw the card onto the grass.

Let's go swimming, Valka.

Ten minutes after the children ran away, Nefedych came out of the garden gate. In his hands he held a crooked garden knife, which he used to cut dry branches, and a shovel.

In the courtyard, he stopped just near the place where the guys had recently been talking, and began wrapping a cigarette. His eyes fell by accident on the card lying on the grass.

Look, the guys are messing up again, ”he grumbled, picking up the piece. He turned the find in his hands, took out his glasses and, looking closely at the raised piece, threw up his hands: - Oh you, you devils! I’m looking, looking for a photograph, twice a day a person comes to fetch it, and they tore it up ... Now my five is gone ... Who needs such a piece? - He thrust the card into his pocket and, with a heavy sigh, went home.

When Yashka and Valka were returning home for dinner, before reaching the gate, they heard the barking of the Wolf and the cry of their father.

But shut up, you accursed one, look how angry you are! .. Come in, come in. Fear not, he's on a chain.

The gate swung open, and a stranger came out to meet the guys. Short, slightly stooped, with an uneven row of small teeth, bared into a satisfied smile. His right arm was tied with a bandage.

He glanced sideways at the boys and turned abruptly to the opposite side of the sidewalk.

In the courtyard, Yashka ran into his father, who was holding a new crunchy piece of paper in his hand.

Yashka quickly looked at the grass near the fence. The fragment of the photograph he had thrown was not there.

After dinner he went into the garden, lay down and thought. And the more he thought, the more intrusive the thought became attached to him that all the events of the last days were not accidental, but had a strong connection with each other, and that this photographic card was the connecting link of everything that happened.

Just at this time, Yashka's father received a vacation and was going to stay with his mother for three days in the city, to the eldest married daughter.

Aunt Daria was invited to manage the house at this time. But Aunt Daria was already old, besides, she was too fat and a little deaf, and therefore her mother began to pump up Yashka in the morning:

But be careful not to go to bed early and not forget to lock the doors ... But don't bother Nyurka, otherwise I'll come and give him a thrashing. Yes, if I notice that you, like the last time, opened the cupboard with jam with a nail, then you'd better run away from the house in advance. - Etc. First, the possible Yashkins' crimes were listed, then there was a list of punishments that would follow these crimes.

Yashka answered everything shortly:

No, Mom. Why are you attached? You would have cracked my neck ahead of time. I said that I wouldn’t, so I won’t.

But as soon as the cart, which was taking the parents to the station, disappeared, Yashka rushed into the garden like a hurricane, whistling Valka, always ready to appear. And together they began to cackle and gallop across the grass like young foals set free.

I am now the master of the house! - Yashka declared proudly. - Ouch, it's fun when the father and mother leave from time to time! Already we with you during these days will invent something funny.

Come on, Yashka, let the snake go ... let's make it with a ratchet.

And the militiaman does not order with a rattle, because the horses are frightened. Yes, and without a ratchet does not order that the telephone wires are not confused.

The work was in full swing; took out a glass of flour, made a paste. Yashka brought in his father's newspaper and a washcloth pulled out of the rug, and Valka brought shingles.

When Yashka was already making a "puta", that is, three threads converging at the center, an interesting announcement caught his eye. It said:

Parents of the boy Dmitry Elkin

kindly ask the person who wrote a note about him

in the Rostov newspaper "Molot"

tell our son our address:

"Saratov province, state farm" Red Plowman ".

Honest mother, but it's Dergach they are looking for! - gasped Yashka. - Do you remember, he told us that someone wrote about him in the newspaper.

And Dergach doesn't know anything. Maybe he would never know at all - would he come across a newspaper?

And where did he fall? No to wait ... It's a pity all the same, Valka, Dergach. Although he was homeless, he was good. He stood up for us. I cooked a goat for a wolf ... I set up a slingshot. And then he left ... And how glad he would have been, Valka!

After graduating from the snake, the guys let it dry, then took the Wolf with them and ran into the field to launch it.

But despite the fact that the snake went straight up and hummed with a rattle cheerfully, scaring away the ringing larks, the mood of the guys dropped. It was a pity for Dergach and a shame for the fact that he so unexpectedly and absurdly left his happiness. I was going to Siberia to look for some aunt. And where else can you find her without a surname? But is it far from the Saratov province here?

The serpent, unexpectedly saluting, quickly went down. Yashka started to run with all his might, pulling on the thread, but nothing helped. The serpent once again saluted and fell like a stone somewhere on the trees behind the "Grafsky".

They began to pull together a ball of thread, but the threads soon broke. "Eh, mother wouldn't ask!" Thought Yashka.

They ran. The serpent was sitting high in the branches of one of the trees in the grove, which started from "Grafsky" and adjoined the gloomy Kudimovsky forest. Yashka was about to climb the tree when his attention was attracted by the barking of the Wolf.

An interested Yashka ran to bark and saw that the Wolf was jumping in the bushes near a narrow path and, happily wagging its tail, was fluttering some black object with its teeth.

The guys snatched his find from the Wolf and looked at each other. It was nothing more than Dergach's cap, tattered and stained with soot.

Valka, - said Yashka, after thinking a little, - maybe Dergach didn't run away at all? Maybe he was just scared of someone and is hiding somewhere here, in the neighborhood? I know there is a hut nearby.

And who should he be afraid of?

Whom! Yes, at least these ones that climb the estate.

So you yourself told me that these are scientists.

I know what I said. Yes, something seems to me now, Valka, that they are, perhaps, not exactly scientists, but some other.

Meanwhile, the Wolf, quietly, squealing joyfully, ran along the path, sniffing at it and never ceasing to wave its tails.

Look, the Wolf is so happy. Honestly, he sensed the trail of Dergach. You know what, Valka, let's run after the Wolf, he will lead us somewhere. There are even several huts in which they spend the night on the mow. And now it’s not too late. The sun is still high.

Valka hesitated, but, always obedient to the wishes of his comrade, agreed.

Come on, Wolf! - And Yashka waved his Dergach cap in front of his nose. - Well, look!

The wolf, jumping high, licked Yashka in the face, as if showing that he understood what they wanted from him, buried his nose in the ground, turned around and, at once pulling the string stretched from the collar to Yashka's hand, dragged the boy along.

Look how he loves Dergach.

Still would! Dergach fed him all the meat and always put him to sleep with him.

How long this rapid advance along the path lasted is hard to say. But it must have been a lot, because the trees had already begun to cast long shadows, and the guys were sweating a lot when the Wolf suddenly stopped, spun around, sniffing at the ground, and resolutely turned right from the path into the forest.

Half an hour later it became clear to Yashka that in the direction where the Wolf was striving, there was not a single place where Dergach could hide, except only ... except only the "hunting lodge".

The building, known as the "hunting lodge", was seven versts from "Grafsky". Once built at the whim of the count away from the road, on the edge of a huge swamp, it remained almost untouched to this day. True, everything that could be taken away from it was plundered during the war years, but the house itself, built of blocks of gray stone lying in abundance, survived.

After the revolution, one of the burned peasants wanted to adapt the house for housing, but the place turned out to be completely inconvenient: on the one hand - a stone, on the other - a swamp. So no one moved into the house, and it was overgrown with weeds and damp moss.

Whole clouds of gnats scurried between the trees. The sun did not warm well through the dense foliage of the moist earth. The women did not come here for mushrooms either, because only milky white violins and fiery red fly agarics grew here.

And only in early spring and towards autumn, when hunting was allowed, could a dull echo of the shot of a lonely hunter hunting ducks be heard. And even then it was rare: there were few of their own hunters in the town, and it was far from the city.

It was to this house that the Wolf dragged the guys along with him.

A little short of the place, Yashka stopped and, passing the string from the dog's collar to Valka, said:

Stay here. Sit behind this stone and see that the Wolf does not bark. And I will go ahead and scout carefully. And who knows who else you will run into. In which case, let's start the runaway back.

Valka cowered. It was evident that this order was not to his liking, but he knew that Yashka was useless to object, and besides, the house around the corner was very close. He perched between two large boulders and pulled the eagerly torn Wolf towards him.

Turning around a hill overgrown with bushes, Yashka saw the roof of a "hunting lodge". Hiding behind the foliage, he made his way close and listened.

Apart from the buzzing of mosquitoes, the croaking of frogs and the dreary squeak of some marsh bird, he did not hear a single sound that could tell him that the house was inhabited.

Then Yashka cautiously approached the porch, wondering what made the Wolf so persistently pull to this place. He pulled the door handle and found himself inside the house. There was no one in the first room, but for the fact that people were here recently, they said cleaning of sausages, a bottle of wine and cigarette butts scattered on the floor.

He lifted one butt and again easily recognized the same sort of cigarettes with golden letters that he had found twice in the Grafsky.

"Wow," he thought, "our researchers seem to have been here already!" There was an armful of hay in the next room. Then he looked into a small side room. Here he immediately came across a box with some tools and two unknown objects, somewhat similar to shells.

"What can all this mean?" Thought Yashka.

And he darted back to the porch.

And where, in fact, was Dergach at that time?

Having gone, as usual, in the evening to the basement of "Grafsky", to the Wolf, he soon fell asleep. He woke up again from the slight growl of the dog. This time the noise upstairs was quite distinct; it intensified and subsided.

Finally, footsteps were heard in the storeroom next to the basement. The light from a lighted candle filtered through the narrow crack of the iron door. Someone shuffled their feet on the stone floor, then hay thrown on the floor rustled, and one could hear the man lay down on an armful to rest.

"Who else has this brought here?" - thought Dergach. And after patting the Wolf so that he was silent, Dergach, sneaking to the door, looked into the crack.

And although the candle dimly illuminated the stone vaults of the storeroom, Dergach immediately recognized the man.

“Count,” he whispered, feeling trembling in his knees, “Count” returned to his estate, but why? What does he want here? - A terrible thought burned Dergach at the same time ...

That's why he saw Earl and Cartilage at the main line station. They themselves were heading to the place, but he, Dergach, did not find any place where it would be safer to escape, but here, to the place. Clearly, since the Count is here, Cartilage is somewhere nearby.

But what to do now? The wolf barely restrains himself so as not to bark, and the count is not going to leave. Maybe he will even stay here overnight? And at dawn, if he sees the door to the basement and looks in here? What then? Then it's over.

One after another, plans to escape from this trap flashed through Dergach's head. No ... nothing comes out. Then he took out a photograph, pulled out a stub of pencil, which was lying around among other trifles in his pocket, and in the dark wrote at random:

"Yashka, I'm locked up ... Cartilage here, in" Grafsky ", tell the police" ...

Dergach tied the photo to his collar, dragged the Wolf to the narrow window and stuck the dog's head in there.

The wolf did not force himself to beg ...

It was heard how he plunged into the water and swam, heading for the opposite bank.

Dergach hid in a corner, curled up and covered himself with hay. “Still, it’s easier without a dog,” he thought, “otherwise it would certainly give out barking.”

A few minutes later, someone else quickly entered the next storeroom, and Dergach immediately recognized Cartilage by his voice.

Count, - he said abruptly, - something is wrong ... There are cops here somewhere ... I walk past the pond, I hear - something plopped from the wall. I see the dog is swimming; I ... I waited for her ... I waited until she starts to get out ... I lit her with a flashlight - I look, she has some kind of bag tied to her neck ... bushes and disappeared ... Wait ... the dog fell into the water from this wall ... Wait, where does this iron door lead?

At these words, Dergach cringed even more and almost stopped breathing.

In the next room they were conferring in a whisper about something.

Then suddenly the door flew open at once. At first Dergach did not see anyone. But then he saw that both of the hijackers had prudently lay down on the floor, obviously fearing that a shot would not be thrown at them from the open door at once. They had revolvers in their hands.

There is no one, - said the count.

However, Cartilage found himself in two leaps near a heap of hay lying in the corner, and kicked him hard.

A malevolent cry escaped him when he saw Dergach shrinking into a ball in front of him:

And ... so that's where you are ... so you are following us ... you sent a report to someone with a dog, to the police, or what? .. Whose dog was it? ..

And Cartilage hit Dergach with all its might. He staggered and, making a desperate attempt, if not to justify himself, then to gain time, replied:

I did not write to the police, but to my friends. So that they don't come here tomorrow, because there is someone else here. This is their dog, they hid it here.

And ... I know ... who they are ... - Cartilage hissed, referring to the count. - The other day they were all spinning here, near the estate. One of them is the son of that same watchman ... Well, you know, which one ... to which I still go for a photograph ...

Wait, - the count interrupted him, - the note can still get into the police ... The devil knows what this little snake wrote in it. It must be returned at all costs ... otherwise the whole matter may collapse ... The dog must be wandering around the yard until morning ... Try to sneak into the yard and kill her ... and rip off what is written on the collar. .. This is not a joke ... We haven't done anything yet ...

The cartilage struck Dergach again and said angrily:

Now, get confused now with the dog! .. It's not enough of your own business, or something ... Well, okay ... Stay here ... Yes, tie the hands of this bastard ... And be on your guard ... In which case ... you knock, and you will go there ... and we will meet there.

And he disappeared.

Cartilage returned an hour and a half later. He was angry, and his right hand was covered in blood.

Damn dog! - he said. - She was locked in a bathhouse ... I made my way there, stabbed her, but she, like a frenzied woman, dug into my hand ... Then sodom got up, someone even banged after me, but my happiness is by.

And the note?

What the hell is this note! There, a whole card was suspended from the collar. I pulled - half ripped off, and half remained there. On, look ...

The count looked at the fragment presented to him and shouted:

Listen, do you know what this is? This is half of the very photograph that we need; but only the entire bottom of her, which we most need, remained there ... How did she get to you? - he asked, jerking Dergach by the shoulder.

Dergach answered.

Oh you! - Count Cartilage said venomously. - I was afraid of a dog bite. Well, what would you rip it all off! And the whole thing would be over ... And now what ... to break through the entire section of the greenhouses, or what ...

Eh, you're good too! - Snapped angry Cartilage. - Your Excellency! The owner of the estate - and you cannot show the place where the palm tree grew.

Fool! Yes, when the peasant drove us out of the estate, I was only twelve years old.

And whose face is that on the card?

This is my elder brother. I was very much like him. Yes, and our whole family was alike, we have a family nose and chin ... Well, now what to do?

Cartilage thought and said:

We need to get out of here just in case. We'll wait out the day there, and then we'll see.

And this one? - And the count shook his head, pointing at Dergach lurking in the corner.

We will take this with us too. I’ll first question him thoroughly how and why he got here.

The raiders quickly got out, and, pushed by kicks, Dergach wandered along the path indicated to him into the forest.

One of the branches caught his cap and threw it to the ground. Dergach could not lift it, because his hands were tightly tied.

From the tools scattered on the floor of the "hunting lodge" to which Dergach was brought, he understood that the hijackers had arrived here for some serious business.

He was pushed into a large room and flew into a corner.

Recovering a little, Dergach began to look around. He was immediately amazed that the outside window was wide open and had no bars. He stuck his head in there, but the night, black, impenetrable, hid the outlines of all objects.

And immediately Dergach decided to run away. A small shard of glass stuck out in the half-rotted frame of the blown-out window.

Leaning against the windowsill, he began to rub the rope that bound him against the sharp ledge, wondering at the same time why this usually cunning and prudent Cartilage made such an oversight this time and left him in a room from which one could easily escape.

Meanwhile, a squabble was going on in the next room.

And the devil pulled your daddy, - said Cartilage, - to contact this palm tree! Just think, what a sign: it was today, and the next day it has rotted. Well, I would take at least, as I take it, a stone ... well, if not a stone, then a solid tree - a linden or an oak, or even a palm tree! And how he did not have enough to realize that without him the peasants would not begin to build this palm tree, like him, in glass every winter and it would disappear in the first frost!

Who knew, - objected the count. - Who then thought that all this was for a long time and in earnest! Yes, not only my father, but none of ours thought so. Everyone hoped that the revolution would last a month ... two ... and then everything would go on as before. After all, as they hoped for the white army.

So they hoped. You won't dig up the whole garden! Then they will take you at once on suspicion. All this must be done quickly and imperceptibly - I found a place, dug it out, opened it and scurry away ... I’m wondering if it’s possible to call the old gardener to the estate ... Let him directly show the place where the palm tree grew.

Dangerous ... he might guess.

He would only show us, but there ... - Here Cartilage whistled.

Well, what to do with this?

And Dergach understood that the question was raised about him.

With this? .. But let's eat a little and rest, and then I will interrogate him, and head into the swamp ... I have old scores with him. All the same, no sense will come out of him. Then the brute ran away with a stirrup.

"Wait!" Thought Dergach, shaking off the cut ropes from the runes. "Only you saw me!"

He carefully climbed onto the windowsill, intending to jump down, when he suddenly staggered and convulsively grabbed the frame jamb with his hands.

The sky turned a little gray, the stars faded, and with weak flashes of pre-dawn lightning, Dergach made out right under the window a steep deep cliff, below which, from behind densely overgrown yellow water lilies, glimpses of water peeped out, covering in some places a viscous swamp smelling of rot.

And only now Dergach understood why he was left unattended in a room with an open window, and only now he felt the full horror of his situation.

But the years spent in the constant struggle for existence, spending the night under bridges, dangerous travel under carriages and all kinds of obstacles that had to be overcome during the years of vagrancy, did not pass without a trace for Dergach. Dergach did not want to give up yet. Standing on the windowsill, he began to look around. And then at the top, above the window overlooking the cliff, he noticed another, small window leading to the attic. But before him, even standing up to his full height, Dergach could not reach at least one and a half arshins.

"Eh, if this and that way to fly into the quagmire, - thought, bitterly pursing his lips, Dergach, - if this and that way to disappear, then it's better to try all the same."

His plan was to open the half of the outer frame to its full capacity, climb the top Beam, grab the ledge of the dormer and, making his way to the attic, run from there through the exit door.

Elsewhere Dergach would have done it without much difficulty - he was tenacious, light and flexible - but here the whole point was that the frame was very dilapidated, weakly held on the hinges and could not bear the weight of the boy.

Yet there was no other way out.

Dergach threw open the window to the full and pushed some piece of wood between the window sill and the lower hinge so that the window would not get sloppy. He looked down, and it seemed to him that the black maw of the predatory quagmire was opening wide, waiting for the moment when it would break loose. He averted his eyes and no longer looked down.

Then, with the care of a circus gymnast weighing the slightest movement, he stepped foot on the lower bar. Immediately there was a slight but ominous crunch, and the frame sagged slightly. Then, clinging to the ledges of the unevenly folded wall, trying to reduce his weight as much as possible, he climbed to the middle crossbar. Again something snapped and several screws flew out of their hinges. Dergach swayed and, digging his fingers into the wall, froze, expecting that he was about to fly down with the frame.

Now the most difficult thing remained: I had to put my foot on the upper crossbar, push off at once and grab the ledge of the dormer, which was already almost nearby.

Dergach's legs sprung up, his fingers, ready to grip the ledge with a death grip, spread wide. "Well, - he thought, - it's time! .."

And he lunged with the speed of a snake, feeling that someone had stepped on its tail. There was a strong crack, and the frame, torn off by the jolt, began to slowly fall, pulling out with its weight the last screws that had not yet flown out.

And Dergach, already crawling through the dormer window, heard her plop dully into the fertile swamp.

Having got out to the attic, Dergach rushed to the exit door. But as soon as he pushed the door, he realized that it was bolted from the outside and he was again locked.

Then he lay down on the dusty earthen flooring ... it seems, for the first time in all the years of homelessness, he felt that tears of despair were about to sprinkle from his eyes.

Meanwhile, the crack of the frame that had fallen off alarmed the hijackers. Voices were heard below.

He threw himself out the window, said the count.

He thought, probably, that he would come out. Well, you can't swim out of there! Can you feel the stench rising up? This disturbed swamp gas rises ...

But what about now?

What is "how"? He drowned, and there is a road for him. After the interrogation, I myself wanted to send him along the same path.

Little by little, the lost hope of salvation began to return to Dergach, who realized that the raiders considered him dead.

At dawn, Cartilage and the Count disappeared somewhere. Dergach, taking advantage of their absence, tried all the ways to escape from his dungeon, but the door was firmly locked from the outside and did not give in at all. There was also nothing to disassemble the roof.

Another day passed. Dergach was hungry and exhausted. During this time, he ate only a piece of bread that was accidentally left in his pocket, and drank two handfuls of water that seeped through a crack in the roof during the night rain.

On the third day, the hijackers returned. They were excited about something.

The main thing, - said Cartilage, - the old man shows me a fragment of the photograph, and he says: "The boys tore it up, found only half on the grass." I almost jumped. "All the same, - I say, - let's at least half." And when I gave him the promised A, he was almost stunned with joy.

So today!

Today. I've already got the horse ... we'll load it with a pack and transport it here, then we'll open it at night, and it's over.

Soon they both left.

"Today they will bring something, probably a steel box, and they will break it," thought Dergach, remembering the tools he had seen below. And Dergach, completely exhausted, lay down on the ground and, nesting like a mouse on the gray dust, fell into a kind of half-oblivion.

He came to his senses in the evening, when he heard footsteps below. Back, he thought.

But this time there were some kind of creeping steps, uncertain, as if someone outside was quietly, tiptoeing through the rooms.

Dergach crawled to the door and looked through the crack. There was no one to be seen at the entrance. He waited. Again footsteps were heard, and someone came out onto the porch, carefully looking around and, apparently, about to run away.

Yashka! - Dergach suddenly shouted, staggering. - Yashka! I'm here ... here, locked in the attic ...

A minute later Yashka was already at the door.

Dergach, - he answered excitedly, - you can't unlock here ... a huge lock hangs and is all rusty ...

Dergach looked like a wolf cub, just locked in a cage. He pulled on the door, got angry and bit his lip ...

Rather, it is necessary, they must return now ... What, it does not work? Well, then get me a rope from below, I'll go down the old road, and you will drag me through the window ...

Yashka ran for the rope and pushed it to Dergach through the crack in the door ... The rope went through tightly, and while Dergach was pulling it, he briefly told Yashka about everything that had happened.

Well, now ... run to the side room and wait for me to descend ... Wait!

The guys shuddered ... Somewhere nearby a horse whinnied ...

Run ... - Dergach whispered, - they are returning ... Run to the police, tell them that the box is being broken open Cartilage and the Count, bandits ... Say that it will be too late by dawn ...

And Yashka, rolling down the stairs, crashed into the bushes, without stopping, waved his hand to the lurking Valka ... And, despite the branches of the trees, painfully whipping his face, the frightened guys ran to the place.

As soon as Dergach had time to pull a thick rope through the gap to him, the Count and Cartilage approached the house, holding the bridle of the loaded horse.

Stamping heavily, the raiders carried a small square object into the rooms, and from the way something hit the floor hard, Dergach guessed that it was a fireproof box.

Then, throughout the night below, one could hear a scuffle, a creak and some hiss, similar to the noise of a lit primus.

Obviously, the progress was slow, for several times desperate curses were heard from below.

Dawn came, but help did not come. And now Dergach was not so much preoccupied with the thought of how soon he would have to get out, but whether the militia would be able to arrive on time and capture the accursed Cartilage before the raiders broke open the box and disappeared from here.

Joyful exclamations from below prompted Dergach that the box had finally been opened.

Several minutes of silence and hasty fuss followed. Downstairs, they must have examined the contents of the box.

Phew, it's hot ... I'm sweating all over, - said Cartilage.

My tongue almost cracked too ... Go to the spring, fetch some water.

But Cartilage, obviously for reasons that seemed to him quite weighty, replied:

Here's another! Why should I go alone ... let's go together ... and then immediately, without wasting a minute, we'll take everything and wash off, otherwise the horses must have missed it already ...

Are you afraid that I might take everything and run away? the Count asked mockingly. - Well, okay, let's go to drink together.

Through the crack Dergach saw how they hurriedly went to the edge and disappeared into the bushes. "They'll come back now, take everything that was in the box, and disappear," thought Dergach. "And again Cartilage will be free, and again always fear and tremble, lest he get in your way. Eh! Why don't they go our something! "

And suddenly a daring thought occurred to Dergach.

Oh, Cartilage! he whispered. - You always knew only that to beat and beat me, you wanted to throw me into the swamp ... Wait, Cartilage! You and I will settle accounts now.

Obviously, some kind of fever intoxicated Dergach, because before he, trembling at the mere mention of the name of Cartilage, would never have dared to take such a risky act.

He quickly lowered the rope from the skylight along the sheer wall ... fastened one end to the pillar that supported the roof and slid down the rope. Finding himself on the windowsill of a side room, he jumped down, and, running into the next room, firmly slammed the heavy door and slid it onto the iron bolt.

"Try it, get here now!" - he thought maliciously, looking around the strong grates of the windows overlooking the forest.

He could see the raiders returning back.

He stood outside the door. Footsteps were heard on the porch. The door shuddered. Shuddered again.

And immediately outside there was an angry and at the same time frightened exclamation:

What the hell! Someone locked themselves in there.

Then Dergach shouted from behind the door with undisguised angry triumph:

Cartilage ... you, dog, wanted to throw me into the swamp! Throw yourself there now out of anger! I will not open it for you, and you will not get anything of what is in the steel box.

The roar of a shot, which rang out in response ... and the bullet that pierced the door, did not confuse Dergach, for he prudently stood behind the stone wall.

Better open it, son of a dog! - the Count and Cartilage roared in one voice. - Open it, otherwise we'll break down the door anyway!

In response to this, Dergach laughed somehow unnaturally loud with excitement.

He knew for sure that the hijackers could not break down the door with their bare hands, because all their tools were left in the house. It was important for him to gain time and detain the bandits until help came.

Suddenly he fell like a stone to the floor, because the count, sneaking from the other side, thrust his hand with a revolver into the lattice window.

Dergach crawled close to the wall. The count's arm twisted, trying to bend enough to reach Dergach with a bullet.

The bullet pierced the floor a quarter of it. The count, forcibly bent his arm again and fired again. The bullet moved two more inches towards Dergach. But the count's hand was not rubber, and he could no longer bend it. Then the count jumped away from the window and ran around the corner, apparently having thought of another plan.

Taking advantage of this moment, Dergach darted into the side room, the window of which overlooked the swamp.

Here he was comparatively safe.

But why aren't ours coming? he whispered with concern. - After all, I will not be able to hold out for a very long time. Cartilage will think of something ...

The fact that Cartilage had already invented something, he was convinced after a few minutes, having felt the smell of burning.

He leaned out into the next room and saw that on the floor scraps of hay thrown through the grate were burning. He wanted to trample, but immediately jumped back, because the bullet hit the stone wall, not far from his head.

“But they will burn it!” Dergach thought in fear. “They will throw the hay until the floor catches on fire.

Obviously Cartilage knew what it was doing. Among the apparatus brought by the hijackers to break into the cabinet were flammable liquids. The flame, reaching them, raged at once with tenfold force, spreading across the floor and spreading a heavy, suffocating smoke.

"Gone! - thought, breathless, Dergach. - Gone completely." The smoke went into my eyes, nose, throat. Dergach's head was spinning, he staggered and leaned against the wall.

"He disappeared completely ..." - he thought again, already completely losing consciousness.

His knees gave way, and he fell, no longer hearing how the shots of the policemen who had arrived and opened fire rumbled through the forest.

Dergach woke up in the hospital. And the first thing he paid attention to was the whiteness surrounding him. White walls, white pillows, white beds. A woman in a white coat came up to him and said:

Well, here I woke up, dear! Now, drink this one.

And, raising himself weakly on one elbow, Dergach asked:

Where is Cartilage?

Sleep ... sleep ... - the white woman answered him. - Stay calm.

As if in a dream Dergach saw a man with glasses, who took his hand.

It was calm, warm and quiet, and most importantly, everything around was so white and clean. There was no trace of the black rags and soot-stained hands.

Sleep! the woman told him again. - You will soon recover and soon you will be at home now.

And Dergach - a little tramp, only by huge efforts of will got out of the way of the raiders on the solid road - closed his eyes, repeating in a barely audible whisper: "Soon home."

A day later, Yashka and Valka were on a date with Dergach. Both of them were dressed in huge robes, combed and washed. Dergach smiled at them, nodding his slender, cropped head. At first everyone was silent, not knowing how to start a conversation in such an unusual environment, then Yashka said:

Dergach! Get well soon. The count was arrested, he turned out to be a real count. They dug a box under the palm tree, hidden by the old count before running towards the whites. There was a lot of stuff in the box, but because of you, our militiamen managed to seize everything. Come out soon, all the boys will follow you in herds now, because you are a hero!

And where is the cartilage?

The cartilage is killed when it fired back.

Dergach, - Valka said timidly, - and your family was found on the announcement. And the pioneers are bothering you with a ticket. And the Wolf bows to you too ... He loves you very much, Dergach.

Dergach sighed. A good childish smile spread over his washed, still pale face, and, closing his eyes, he said joyfully:

And how good it is to live ...

Arkady Petrovich Gaidar - On the ruins of the counts, read text

See also Gaidar Arkady Petrovich - Prose (stories, poems, novels ...):

NIGHT IN CARAUL
Story Quiet in the guardroom. Red Army men of the next shift, ra ...

Trim
My assistant Trach rode up to me with such an expression on his face that I am a captive ...

• eggs 3 pieces
• sugar 450 grams
• wheat flour 1.5 cups
• cocoa powder 6 tbsp. spoons
• milk 150 milliliters
• baking powder for the dough 1 sachet
• butter 100 grams
• sour cream 400 grams
• nuts 50 grams

For cooking, you may need:

Cooking method:

1. Beat the eggs with 100 grams of sugar to dissolve the sugar.

We heat 2.150 g of milk and 100 g of sugar, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves

3. Pour milk into eggs, add flour, cocoa 2 tbsp. spoons, baking powder. Mix everything well so that there are no lumps

4. Grease the form with butter, pour the dough into it and send it to the oven at 170-180 degrees for 30 minutes. The time depends on the oven. We check the readiness with a wooden stick.

5.Remove the cake from the oven, let it cool slightly.

6. Make the cream. To do this, beat 350 grams of sour cream thoroughly with 150 grams of sugar.

7. Prepare the fondant. To do this, put 50 grams of sour cream, 100 grams of sugar and 4 tbsp of cocoa in a saucepan. spoons. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Add 70 grams of butter, mix and set so that the fondant cools down a little (it will then become thicker and will not drain from the cake).
8 Cut the cake into 2 pieces. Cut the upper part into small pieces. Dip the pieces of the cake into the cream and spread them in a slide on the bottom of it. Pour fondant on top.
We send in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, and preferably at night!
You can sprinkle the top with whatever your heart desires, such as nuts or coconut.

Addition:

If the cake is very thick, then it can be cut into three parts. Cut the upper part into small pieces as in the recipe. Smear the lower part with cream and put the middle part on it. The cream can be used the same as in the recipe, or you can use the creamy one.

Butter cream with cocoa

Cream with a fat content of 33-35% - 500 ml

Powdered sugar - 60 gr

Cocoa powder - 30 gr

1.Sieve icing sugar through a sieve. Then repeat the same with cocoa.

2. Using a whisk, mix the powder and cocoa thoroughly.

3. Pour the cream into the mixer bowl, beat for 1-2 minutes until thickening, adjusting the mixer speed (minimum-maximum).

4. Then add dry ingredients. Beat on low speed for 20-30 seconds, then on high speed for 2-3 minutes until fluffy soft peaks. In the process, it is advisable to suspend the operation of the mixer 1-2 times and draw a spatula along the walls of the container so that there are no unnecessary lumps left.

Ready chocolate cream keeps its shape perfectly, has a pleasant shade, and the taste is tenderness itself. Light, not sugary, it melts in the mouth, evoking light and airy associations in the mind.

I

A curly blond head, two bright blue eyes peeped out of the grass, and an angry whisper was heard:
- Valka ... Valka ... but crawl, you idol, on the right! Crawl in from the back, or he will ooh.
The thick burdocks began to stir, and from their swaying tops one could guess that someone was crawling cautiously on the ground.
Suddenly the blond head of the hunter emerged from the grass again. A fired arrow whistled and, thumping dully on the boards of the rotten fence, fell.
A large, fat cat, frightened, rushed to the roof of the crooked bathhouse and disappeared into the attic window.
- Doo-urak ... Eh, you! - Indignantly, the hunter said to his comrade rising from the ground. - I told you - crawl. It would be as convenient from the back there, but now, take a bite ... When you keep track of him again.
- I would crawl myself, Yashka. There are nettles, and I burned myself twice.
- Nettle! When on the hunt, there is no time for nettles. You should send another rug.
- And since it burns!
- So you endure it. Why am I putting up with it ... Do you want me to rip it off with my bare hand and not even blink? Lying, you think?
Yashka wiped his damp hand, pulled out a large nettle bush and, opening his eyes unnaturally wide, asked triumphantly:
- Well, blinked? Eh you, nurse.
- I'm not a nurse at all, - Valka answered offendedly. “I can, too, but I don’t want to.
- And you want ... Well, weakly want? Valka's freckled, snub-nosed face turned red; Now he could not help but accept the challenge.
He went up to the nettles, hesitated, but, feeling the mocking gaze of his comrade on him, with a jerk pulled out a large, old nettle. His lips trembled, his eyes began to water; however, trying to induce a smile, he said, stammering a little:
“And I didn't blink either.
- Right! - Yashka agreed in a clean way. - If he didn’t blink, then he didn’t blink. Only I still grabbed it in the middle, and you were under the spine, and under the spine she had a weaker sting. Well, and that's okay! You know? Let's go to the courtyard, the girls are playing there, and we will arrange a flurry for them.
- And mother is at home?
- No. She went to the station to sell milk. No one is at home.
In the courtyard near the fence, homely and chirping like magpies, two girls covered the broken chair and stool with an old blanket and, leaning out of their hut, cheerfully called two other girls:
- Come, please, visit! We have jam pies today. Come in, please!
But as soon as the guests dignifiedly went to the call, the hostesses of the hut looked at each other in dismay:
- The boys are coming!
Yashka and Valka approached slowly, calmly, this time without betraying their true intentions.
- Are you playing? - asked Yashka.
- U-wow-wee! What are you bothering about? We do not climb up to you, - said Nyurka, Yashkina's little sister, tearfully.
- Why should we leave? - Yashka asked even softer. - We will see, and we will move on. What is this with you? - And he jabbed a finger into the blanket.
“This is our home,” replied Nyurka, somewhat taken aback by such an unusual peaceful approach.
- Do-oh? Do they build houses from blankets? Houses are built from logs or bricks. You would have dragged bricks from Grafsky and built a strong one, but if you push this one a little, it will crumble.
And Yashka touched the stool with his foot, which caused considerable panic among the inhabitants of the hut.
- OK. Where is your pie?
“Right here,” Nyurka replied, anxiously following every movement of Yashka.
- What a fool! Everything is not human with them. The house is made of blankets, and the pies are made of clay. Come on, eat one pie, come on, bite. Would you like to? You treat people to such rubbish, but you don't want to ... Valka, let's put all their pies in their mouths. They baked them themselves, let them eat them.
- I-a-a-shka! - hopelessly sadly, the girls pulled in with one voice. - I-a-shka ... o-go, hu-li-i-ha-an.
- And ... you still swear! Valka, attack this bandit's nest!
As soon as the threat of defeat and reprisal hung closely over the peaceful inhabitants of the hut, suddenly Yashka felt that someone firmly took him from behind by the whirlwind.
The girls, as if on command, stopped howling. Yashka turned around and saw Valka's heels disappearing behind the fence, and the angry face of his mother, who had returned from the station.
- March home! - shouted the mother, giving him a spanking. - Look, a robber, and his games are robber ... Look, what Petliura has found out! Wait, your father will come - he will show you how to be ataman!

II

III

In the following week, there was considerable talk and gossip among the boys of the town. This homeless man, apparently, actually turned out to be a real robber.
For example, on the night from Saturday to Sunday, the garden of Aunt Pelageya turned out to be completely cleared of apples. In the priest's house, glass is shattered by a stone that has flown in from nowhere. And what is even worse - Sychiha's goat disappeared. That is, all the nooks and crannies were searched, all wastelands, but the goat is gone and gone ...
Yashka understood everything. Well, apples, for example, in reserve. In glass with a stone - just for mischief. Well, what about the goat? They don't eat any skins from him, or meat.
- Eat-u-ut! - Valka confirmed with enthusiasm. - Ordinary people do not eat, but they all eat as it is. This is their nature.
- What did you mutter to me, - Yashka got angry, - nature and nature! In your opinion, maybe they are eating raw materials.
- And raw materials and everything! - Valka began to assure with even greater passion. - Simka told me that when he was in the city - he saw this! There is a tradeswoman with a basket, and the street children swooped in… once… once, and nothing remained of her.
- From a tradeswoman?
- Yes, not from a tradeswoman, but from a basket, with rolls there or with pies.
- So this is a pie - a pie, it is delicious, and then a goat - ugh!
Valka looked around, walked closer to his comrade and said in a mysterious whisper:
- Yashka! And Stepka is tracking us down. Honestly. I went to the Grafsky. Suddenly, as smoothly pulled me to turn around. I looked closely. I look, Stepkina's head sticks out from behind the bushes and peers intently behind me. I deliberately took yes and turned into a ravine to a vacant lot, and from there home.
- Well! - And even Yashka's voice broke off with excitement. - Or maybe he just by accident?
- Well, no, not by accident. That way he looks and looks straight. And I looked - a bush swayed nearby ... there must have been someone else from their party sitting there.
- So you, then, were not there?
- No!
- And how is he there, hungry?
- Never mind, they brought him a lot of bread last time and water too. Will be alive until tomorrow. And tomorrow we will go either early in the morning or later in the evening, when the boys are less noticeable. Wow, how carefully we must act, otherwise they will cover! There are two of us, and there are four of them. If only we could befriend someone else.
- Whom to make friends with? You make him friends today, and he will blurt out everything from them tomorrow. What then? Then they will certainly kill him.
- They will definitely kill.

Returning home, behind the gardens, Yashka ran into his inveterate enemy, Styopka.
The meeting was unexpected for both. But the opponents noticed each other from afar, and therefore, without losing their dignity, it was impossible to turn aside.
Having approached three steps, the enemies stopped and silently, carefully examined each other. Stepka had a stick - therefore, the advantages were on his side. Looking around, Styopka spat contemptuously and masterfully on the grass. Yashka whistled no less contemptuously.
- Why are you whistling?
- Why are you spitting?
- I'll whistle for you! Why are you hunting our cat with arrows?
- And let him not climb into someone else's garden. When our Wolf ran into your yard, why did you throw bricks at it?
- And what have you done with the Wolf? You're lying that someone poisoned him. You yourself hid him somewhere, because we filed a lawsuit against him for strangled chickens. Only you won't fool us ... Wait, we'll get to the bottom of you soon!
- Four for two were found!
- Eh, and cowards! "Four"! Vaska was also counted when he was only nine years old.
- Well, that nine. He's as fat as a hog ... and you are all pigs.
The last remark seemed so offensive that Styopka grabbed a clay ball from the ground and threw it at Yashka with all his might.
And if the bloody duel was not destined to take place, and if Yashka did not fall on the battlefield at the hands of a better armed enemy, it was only because the latter suddenly screamed wildly and ran without looking back.
Assuming that he was cowardly, Yashka uttered a war cry and was about to pursue the enemy, when he suddenly heard a low laugh behind him.
He turned around and immediately understood the real reason for Styopka's hasty disappearance.
Near an elderberry bush stood a small black boy dressed in rags, in which Yashka easily guessed the thunderstorm of all the boys of the town, the hero of recent events - a homeless raider.

IV

V

The house is quiet. Coals crackled in the samovar. Yashka planes a wooden plank. Nefyodich plunged into reading. From behind the unfolded sheet of newspaper, his red forehead is visible, damp after the fifth glass of tea.
Nyurka makes a doll hat. The mother is busy in the kitchen.
“I don’t understand,” her voice is heard. “I don’t understand where the half-iron of yesterday’s borscht disappeared from the passage. Cast iron is in place, but no borscht. Anka! Did you pour out the piglet?
- No, Mom!
“Well, I must have knocked over this idol.
“This idol,” that is, Yashka, sits and puffs, ironing the board, and pretends that the conversation does not concern him.
- You, or what, they say? Are you knocked over? the mother repeats angrily.
Yashka, reluctantly and without stopping from work, answers:
- If I, Mom, knocked it over, everything would be on the floor, and since the floor is dry, it means it would not be knocked over.
- And the dog will take you apart! - the mother is even more irritated. - He did not take, this one did not overturn, why did he dry up, or what? Father! Throw down your newspaper! Who, it turns out, took something?
Nefyodich slowly folds up the newspaper and, apparently hearing only the end of the phrase, answers out of place:
- Indeed ... And who would have thought. Again they took it, but how cleverly it is that you will not dig in.
- Who are they? Who needs this sour soup?
"Not soup ... what kind of soup?" - Nefyodich replies, looking around in confusion and with annoyance. - I say, the conservatives have taken power again.
Convinced that no one could get any sense out, the mother spat and began to rattle the dishes. And Nefyodich, feeling the desire to talk, continued:
- And it would seem that their time has passed. But no, they still wriggle out. Let's say over there, our count. His estate was burned down, he himself staggers abroad somewhere. And everything, come on, dreams of how to return the old. Yes, still and not dream! Take the estate - what was life for him there? Picture - what's inside, so outside. Some greenhouses were worth something. And what was not there - and orchids, and tulips, and roses, and strawberries for Christmas ... The palm tree was even huge, more than two fathoms. They were discharged specially from the Caucasus, from near Batum. I say to him: "Your Excellency, where are we going to put such a colossus - this whole greenhouse will have to be broken!" And he replies: “Never mind, you plant it right in the ground, and every year, for the cold weather near it, make a special building of glass, and by spring we will dismantle it again”. Well, they took it apart. It was a beautiful palm tree. Then the count gave me twenty-five rubles for leaving ... just in May.
- Here's the old one. Did we really have a wedding in May? The wedding was played just after the trio.
- I don’t know, after the Trinity or after what, but only in May we then just planted the Levkoi.
- What are you telling me! - the mother says, suddenly irritated, as always. - Look at the metrics, they lie behind the goddess.
- I have nothing to watch. I already remember. Even then, the senior barchuk had just arrived from the cadet corps on vacation and the photographer was filming him under a palm tree. I still have this card somewhere ... Yashka, did I show you this card?
“I saw it a hundred times,” Yashka answers.
The mother, indignant, throws up her hands and climbs for the metrics into the goddess.
For a long time she cannot find the paper she needs. During this time, her ardor cools down somewhat, for, having estimated in her mind, she begins to remember that the trinity in the year when the wedding was, as if it really was early and fell on May. But here another circumstance distracts her attention.
- Anka! - her voice is heard again. - You didn’t remove the wedding candles because of the shrine?
- No, Mom!
- Father! Surely you haven't touched the candles?
“I haven't touched it for twenty-five years,” Nefyodich humbly confirms. - I haven't touched it since the day of the wedding itself.
- And I saw them last week. Where did they go? Probably, Yashka put it somewhere again.
Yashka, since the question is not addressed directly to him, continues to sniff silently over the board.
- Yashka! You bastard must have blown out the candles?
Yashka finishes his work, puts the knife on the table and answers seriously, but at the same time glancing a little slyly at his mother:
- We, mothers, by order of Lenin conducted electricity, so it’s light for me with him and without your candles.
- So where did they go? Here are some more wonderful things! Nobody poured out the borscht, nobody took the candles, and there is nothing on the spot. What are you going to do with them here!

VI

In the early morning, when everyone in the house was still asleep, Yashka's blond whirlwinds emerged from the window. Seeing Valka, impatiently waiting near the fence, Yashka jumped down onto the wet grass, and both boys disappeared into the raspberry-tree. A minute later they emerged from there, with Yashka carefully carrying a large clay pot tied in a dirty rag.
Having got out of the gardens, the guys quickly rushed along the path leading past bushes and ravines to the ruins of "Grafsky".
On the way, Yashka talked about yesterday's meeting.
- And he has no weights at all, and he has a sparrow in his pocket ... and they don't eat goats, and all this is the boys out of fear. And today we will go to him together. If he becomes friends with us, he will stagnate us from Stepkin's company. He is strong, and he doesn’t care. And then, if he blows someone up, then there is no one to complain about him, and just about us - and to the mother.
- Why is he homeless? So, for his own interest, or does he have no one at home?
- I don’t know! I haven’t asked yet, but it’s unlikely, for the sake of interest: the homeless have a hard life. I’ll grow up, learn, go to a factory or where to serve, and where will he go? He will have nowhere to go at all.
The grove greeted the boys with morning noise, the perky hubbub of birds whistling and the warm steamy smell of drying grass.
Here are the ruins - silent, majestic. There is emptiness in the holes of the dark windows. Old walls smell like mold. A huge pile of rubble from a collapsed column is piled up at the main entrance. In some places, young bushes were breaking through the cornices gnawed by the winds and rains.
Diving into a crack in the stone fence and making their way through a thicket of weeds and wormwood that reached their shoulders, the guys stopped in front of a continuous curtain of wildly growing wild ivy. A prying eye would not have discerned any passage here, but the guys quickly and confidently climbed onto the half-rotten trunk of a felled linden tree, parted the foliage, and a window opened in front of them, emerging from a narrow, well-like room without a roof.
Climbing the ladder, they found themselves in a large room on the second floor, from the windows of which one could see a piece of the Green River and the path leading to the place.
From here they got to the balcony, went straight to the roof, further down through the skylight. It was completely dark here, because this room had obviously served as a storeroom and iron shutters with rusted bolts locked the windows tightly.
Yashka fumbled with his hand somewhere. He took out a stub of a gilded wedding candle with a bow and lit it.
An iron door appeared in the corner. Having reached her, Valka pulled the brace.
The rusty hinges wept bitterly, creaked, and the guys found themselves in a large semi-basement with narrow windows overlooking the surface of a pond filled with algae.
And immediately, in greeting to the boys, a perky, cheerful screech was heard from the corner.
- Wolf, Little Wolf, Little Wolf! - the guys shouted, rushing to the dog tied by the collar. - Missed ... hungry. Look, I've eaten the bread all the way to the top, and not a bit of water in the trough.
The wolf squealed and wagged its tail as it was untied. Then he jumped near the pot, contrived to lick Yashkina's cheek and almost knocked Valka off his feet, resting his paws on his back.
- But wait, you fool ... let the pot be untied ... Well, on - pop.
The dog quickly ran its muzzle into the sour borscht and eagerly began lapping.
The basement was dry and spacious. In the corner lay a large armful of wilted grass.
Here there was a secret refuge of children who hid here the criminal strangler of foreign chickens - the Wolf's dog.
Waiting for the Wolf to be fed up, the guys fell on an armful of grass and began to discuss the situation.
“It's hard to get food,” said Yashka. - Wow, how difficult it is! Mother missed borscht yesterday. And the Wolf is still growing ... Look, he has almost devoured everything. Well, where can you get enough of it!
- Me too, - Valka assented sadly. - Mother saw once, as I drag the crusts, let's swear. She just didn’t guess why. I thought that the crooked delivery man could change for steamed pears. What to do now? Can't you release it yet?
- No, not yet. Soon the court will be about the Stepkin chickens. Mom is called, and me as a witness.
- Can they put you in jail?
- Well, already in jail? They will say, give money for the chickens. And where can you get them, money. And for what only they have money, they are already rich, there is a shop in the bazaar.
The wolf approached, licking his lips, and lay down beside him, resting his big eared head on Yanshin’s knees. We lay in silence.
- Yashka, - asked Valka, - and why, in your opinion, such a domina?
- Which?
- Yes, huge. If you go around it all ... well, let's say, at least look into every room, and then half a day is necessary. And why did the counts have such houses? After all, there were about a hundred rooms here before?
- Well, not a hundred, but that sixty - so that's what my dad said. Counts have every room for something special. In one they sleep, in the other they eat, the third for guests, in the fourth for dancing.
- And for everything separately?
- For everything. They cannot live like that, for example, a room and a kitchen. My father told me that they had a separate room for fish. They let fish into such a huge vat, and then they sit and fish with fishing rods.
- Oh you! And they catch the big ones?
- What they let in, they catch them, even if according to the PUDU. Valka closed his eyes sweetly, imagining a pood carp being pulled out, then asked:
- Have you ever seen, Yashka, living counts?
- No, - Yashka confessed. - I was only three years old, as they were all completely worn out. I saw it on the card. The dad has. There is a palm tree on it - a tree like that, and next to it there is a graphene, so older than me, and in uniform, like white ones, is called a cadet. And such a squishy one. If someone gave it on the back of the neck, he would have piled it in his pants.
- Who would give?
- Well, at least me.
- You ... - Here Valka looked at Yashka with respect. - You are so healthy. And if I gave, then would I heap?
- You ... - Yashka, in turn, glanced at the puny figure of his comrade, thought and answered: - All the same, he would have piled. The old man says that the counts will never resist against the common people.
- And what kind of fruit grows on a palm tree? Tasty?
- Did not eat. It must be delicious, if it is on a palm tree. It's not an apple tree for you, it costs a thousand rubles.
Valka closed his eyes, licking his lips:
- That would be a bite, Yashka! At least a little ... otherwise you will live that way all your life, and you will not bite even once.
- I'll bite. I will grow up, enroll in the Komsomol, and from there in the sailors. And sailors travel to different countries and see everything, and all sorts of adventures happen with them. Do you love adventure, Valka?
- I love. Only to stay alive, otherwise there are adventures from which you can die.
- And I love everyone. I love passion as heroes! Won the armless Panfil-Budenovite has an order. It will take your breath away as he begins to tell about the past.
- And how, Yashka, to become a hero?
- Panfil says that for this you need to drive the whites mercilessly and not give up before them.
- And if the reds drive?
- And if there are red ones, then you are white yourself, and I’m going to crack you on the bowler hat, then you won’t be banging.
Valka blinked his eyes in fright:
- So I on purpose. Am I for whites? Just ask the Pioneer Bear.
“I didn't really like it in the school detachment,” Yashka said a little later. - In other detachments, they go to the camps for the summer, to the forest. And in school there are more girls. And all the poems are taught there, about school and about learning. I walked, walked and stopped. What poems can be in the summer! In summer, you need to fish, or let a snake, or walk away.
- And I was not accepted into the school detachment at all. Seryozha Kuchnikov complained about me, as if I had shaken the pears at Semyonikha's. Yabeda looked for such a thing, and when he accidentally broke the Gavrilovs' window with a snowball last year, he didn’t confess, but they thought about Shurka — his mother tore it out. Is it good to do that too?
- Nothing! By the winter the sawmill will start working again, and the local detachment will sign up. There are funny guys. There, if there is a fight sometimes, then nothing. Well, we had a fight - we made up. Is it possible for the boys without this? And in the school brigade - just about that, they immediately discuss it!
Yashka spat angrily and got up:
- We must go. You sit still, and I go upstairs - I run to the Wolf for water.
Yashka returned ten minutes later. His face was concerned.
“Look,” he said, holding out his hand.
- Well, why should I look? Cigarette butt ...
- And how did he get into the upper room?
- So, maybe it's old, - Valka suggested uncertainly. - Maybe it still remains from the old regime.
- Well, no, not from the old one. It says "2nd State Factory" over there.
- Then, it means that the Stepkin guys were already diving on top. I know that Seryozha Smirnov smokes secretly with them.
“Of course they are,” Yashka agreed. But then he looked at the cigarette butt, on which the "Highest grade" had been embossed in gold, shook his head and said: "But why would Seryozha Smirnov suddenly smoke such expensive cigarettes?"
The boys looked at each other in perplexity. Then they tied the Wolf tightly, ordered him to be silent. And, quickly getting out, they ran home.
Dergach puffed on the smoke of a cigarette, rolled out of the makhorka brought by Yashka, and, pointing his finger at Valka, asked:
- So he told you that I ate a goat? Will say too! The goat is still lying in the ravine - he broke his leg. I shoved him another piece of grass, so as not to die of hunger.
- Dergach, - Yashka asked after some hesitation, - where do you live?
Dergach chuckled:
- I live with myself. Where I’ll stick up for the night, there in the morning I’ll wake up.
- Do you have any relatives?
- Yes, yes, to climb far.
Yashka, bewildered by this manner of answering, said reproachfully:
- And why are you, Dergach, snarling! We're not interrogating you, but if I ask, it's out of friendship.
Dergach still looked disbelievingly at the guys and answered evasively:
- And who knows you, out of friendship or why else. I once lived under a bridge in Rostov. Some whip sat down on me. The same, like me, rags rags. He treated me to sausage and gave me a cigarette. Well, this and that, and began to ask about my life. I foolishly take him and tell him. And how I got lost from my father and mother in the years of famine, and what kind of province I am, what locality, how I live. He even told about the case when a butcher's shop was robbed. Three days later, Cartilage himself comes up to me, but like a slap on the neck! And he pokes the newspaper in my face. "You, he says, why did the tongue dissolve ?!" And I know literacy. I looked at the newspaper and gasped. Honest mother! Everything up to the word that I said was printed in the newspaper - and the nickname, and the name, and where I came from, and, most importantly, about the butcher's shop. Cool then beat me up for that Cartilage.
“We will not publish it in the newspaper,” Valka said, fearfully pushing aside such an accusation. - We won't even print a single line. I've never even seen it printed, and he hasn't seen it either.
Dergach was lying on his back and thinking about something. So, at least, Yashka decided, because when a person lies with his eyes staring at the starry sky, he cannot think.
- Dergach, - Yashka asked unexpectedly, - and who is he to you?
- What is "he"?
- Cartilage.
At the mention of this name, Dergach somehow twitched all over, quickly turned around and asked, perplexed and angry:
- What other Cartilage?
- Yes, you yourself just talked about him.
- Ah ... did you say? - again turning onto his back, said Dergach absentmindedly. - So ... there is only one man ... Oooh, and a man! - Here Dergach raised himself, leaning on his elbows, his face twisted, and, tossing his cigarette butt away, he added caustically: - Wow, and a scoundrel ... wow, and a bandit!
- Real? - Valka asked, widening his surprised and curious eyes, and added with undisguised regret: - But I haven't seen anything - neither a living count, nor a real bandit.
Dergach shrugged his shoulders contemptuously:
- And I saw the Count.
- Alive?
- Of course, not dead.
Valka, as always in moments of excitement, closed his eyes and, imbued with involuntary respect for the ragamuffin, said with ill-concealed envy:
- And you are happy, Dergach, that you saw everything. Dergach looked at Valka in surprise, perhaps even angrily:
- Wow, if you had such happiness, you would howl then like a cow in front of a wolf! No, don't give anyone such happiness ... Eh, if only for me ... - Here Dergach waved his hand and fell silent.
And again it seemed to Yashka that Dergach had some great, unspoken grief in his soul. And, not really knowing why, he put his hand on Dergach's shoulder and said:
- Nothing, Dergach! Maybe somehow everything will work out.
Dergach started back, but, meeting his eyes with the boy's seriously friendly gaze, bowed his head slightly and answered somehow muffledly:
- It would be nice if everything worked out, but I just don't know. And from that evening, a thread of inexplicably strong friendship stretched between Yashka and Dergach.

VIII

IX

That evening Yashka was no longer released from the house. Valka turned around near his window, whistled. But from there suddenly looked out the angry face of Yashkina's mother and heard her stern voice:
- I'll whistle for you! I'll whistle for you, you piggy! I'll throw a bucket of slops on your head right now!
Valka rolled away with a ball and decided that Yashka was locked up or thrown in for arithmetic and he would have to run a dive to throw over.
He took with him a "cat", that is, an anchor made of nails, suspended from a thin string, and rushed to the river.
The sun has already disappeared. Clouds of warm steam spread over the blackened river. Valka went down to the old twisted rakita, spread out near the bank overgrown with sedge, took the end of the string in his left hand, swung the "cat" with his right and, having marked the place, quickly threw it forward.
The water gurgled. Alarmed frogs flopped from the shore in fright.
Valka pulled the end of the string - the string was not stretched.
- Not hooked! - he guessed and threw the "cat" a little to the right.
- Aha ... now there is!
His heart fluttered like a bird entangled in the bushes at night when the clumsy twigs of a dive appeared above the surface of the water.
- Eh, if only a pike ... or a burbot for three pounds.
He grabbed the dive, raised it to his eyes and, not paying attention to the trickles of water flowing down his pants, began to examine the catch:
- Two roaches ... three ruffs, three saigas and two crayfish. Valka sighed in disappointment, strung the fish on the kukan. Rakov threw it into the river, threw the dive to another place and, turning the "cat", climbed up.
It was already night. The edge of a huge moon peered out from behind the forest like a red arc. And, illuminated by its faint radiance, the ruins of the count's estate now seemed again a majestic castle fast asleep.
But what is it? Valka jumped, as if he had caught his foot on a snag, and dropped the kukan. One of the windows of the sleeping castle lit up from the inside with a faint light.
“What a thing? - thought Valka. - Who is that there? ... Aha! Yes it is, of course, Dergach lit a candle. But why is he wandering there? How he, a fool, cannot understand what the boys can see from here and become interested! "
Valka bent down, looking for the dropped kukan. When he raised his head, the light in the window was gone.
And Valka was attacked by the doubt that it was not a moonlit reflection on an accidentally preserved fragment of glass that he mistook for fire.
“I'll have to ask Dergach tomorrow,” he decided. "If he didn't light the fire, then it seemed to me."

X

In the morning, Yashka was dressed in new trousers, a festive shirt, and from the chest her mother took out a cap that smelled of mothballs.
- Mom ... and why would you want a cap? - Yashka protested. “It’s not autumn or winter now, and it’s so hot.”
- Keep your mouth shut! - interrupted his mother. - You want the judge to look at you and say: what a bully, all disheveled! Yes, I’ll give my face a better wash. Yes, if they ask you what they will, then answer modestly and don’t sniff.
In court, they met Stepka's mother, a shopkeeper, unloaded in an old-fashioned plush jacket, and Styopka, so combed back that it seemed that his eyes even moved over his forehead.
The mothers sat down in silence, without greeting. Stepka managed to show Yashka his tongue, to which he turned his neatly folded fig in response.
The proceedings have begun on this intricate case of counterclaims for damages.
The first is about the cost of three chickens strangled by a dog named "Wolf". The second is about the cost of two ducklings and a piece of boiled meat stolen by a cat named "Kosoy". At first it was impossible to understand anything. It seemed as if no one choked the chickens, and no one dragged away the meat. Then it suddenly turned out that the chickens themselves were to blame, for they had wandered into someone else's territory and tore apart the beds with seedlings.
And the ducklings were eaten and the meat was stolen not by the "Oblique" cat that Stepkin, but by the "Tailless" Sychikhin, who had long had a reputation as a suspicious person engaged in dark affairs. However, the lively Sychiha immediately swore an oath that "Tailless" was not her cat at all, but that he lived in the attic of her bath without permission, taking care of his own food, and she could not bear any responsibility for him.
- Witness Yakov Babushkin, - asked the judge, Yegor Semyonovich, a kind old man with laughing eyes, - answer my question: were you in the yard when the Wolf dog rushed at the neighboring chickens?
- I was, - Yashka answers.
- What did you do?
- We ... - Yashka hesitates.
“Answer… don't be afraid,” the judge encourages.
- Valka and I shot from a roguel.
- From what?
- From the roguel, - Yashka continues, embarrassed. - A stick with rubber, you will put a stone in it, and it will crack!
- Where will it crack? - the judge is surprised.
- And where to aim, there it will crack, - explains Yashka and finally gets lost, hearing the hum of restrained laughter.
- So! ... And what did you do when you saw that the Wolf dog was strangling the neighboring chickens?
- So, comrade judge, they themselves climbed into our beds ...
- I'm not talking about that! You answer, what did you do when you saw that the dog was choking the chickens?
- We ... so when we approached, the Wolf had already fled.
- Were the chickens already dead?
- And who knows ... maybe not dead ... maybe they just froze to death.
- Sit down ... Witness Stepan Surkov. Is it true that your chickens wandered into someone else's garden?
“They didn’t wander in on their own, they lured them with grain.
- Why do you think you have lured?
- They definitely lured me. Why would they go to someone else's yard? Do they have their own, or what?
- When you picked up the chickens, were they already dead?
- All dead ... and one even lacked half a leg. As the mother took them to the market to sell, then those two were nothing, but this third was forced ...
Then Stepan, suddenly feeling a poke in the side from the mother sitting next to him, suddenly fell silent.
But it's already late, and the judge asks sternly and in surprise:
“So you ... you sold the dead chickens at the bazaar?” Stepkina's mother feels what a mistake her son made, and tries to wriggle out:
- He's lying, comrade judge! The chickens had just been dented, but they were still alive; I killed them, of course, and sold them.
- So-ak! - the judge says, drawing out his words and squinting slyly. - So, you say that you killed your live chickens and sold them in the bazaar ... But excuse me: what then could there be a lawsuit about?
The audience laughs together, and Yashka almost squeals with pleasure. Yashka probably knows that the Wolf strangled the chickens, but after Styopka blurted out that they were sold at the bazaar, it is in no way possible for Stepka's mother to say that she sold dead chickens.
- Wow! - he shouts, after a while leaving the court. - Our took.
And behind the angry shopkeeper says quietly to Styopka:
- Wait, we’ll come home, I’ll pull you out, I’ll show you how to talk nonsense! - And, turning to Yashkina's mother, she screams angrily: - And you tell your tomboy not to misbehave! In the morning I open the pantry, and so I froze - lizards dart around the floor. I know who was letting this in from the garden through the window.
But Yashka tugs at his mother's hem and tells her convincingly:
- Don't believe it, Mom! What am I, a snake tamer, or what? I myself am afraid of all lizards and snakes worse than death.

XI

The previous evening, Dergach, seizing the goat meat strung on a string, began to run to the "Grafsky".
The basement was already twilight. Dergach lit a candle and, throwing a piece of meat to the always hungry Wolf, lay down on an armful of hay and again took out a photograph.
- So that's who he is! - Dergach whispered. - And I thought it was just his nickname ... In epaulettes ... And now what the man has reached ... So, it means that this was his entire estate ...
Dergach thrust the card into his pocket and, putting with him the warm, tightly biting Wolf, closed his eyes.
There was a dead silence under the arches of the stone basement. One could even hear the Wolf's heart beating evenly and the reeds rustling under the window on the pond.
Dergach fell asleep. He slept soundly, but restlessly. In a dream he saw a palm tree, and under a palm tree Yashka.
“Come here,” Yashka called. And suddenly Dergach saw that it was not Yashka at all, but the formidable raider Cartilage himself was standing and beckoning him with his finger: "Well, come here, come here ... Why did you want to be a burglar, and why did you abandon the stirrup?"
Dergach wanted to shout, but could not; I wanted to run, but the grass covered my legs; he lunged and ... opened his eyes.
The wolf stood nearby. It was visible how his eyes were burning with greenish lights. Dergach stroked the dog and felt that every muscle was springy and tense.
- What are you doing? - Dergach asked in a whisper and, listening, caught a barely audible rustle somewhere far above.
These are owls chasing bats, he thought. - Who will come here at night. Lie down, Wolf, lie down ... There is no one. We are alone".
And, hugging the dog tightly, he lay still a little with his eyes open, then fell asleep and did not wake up again until dawn.

XII

Dergach answered Valka that he did not light any light in the upper rooms. But at the same time he was so embarrassed and frowned that it did not escape the eyes of the boys.
“I’m thinking of moving out of here tomorrow,” he said out of the blue.
- Where to go? Why, Dergach? Do you feel bad here with us?
Dergach was silent ... It was evident that he hesitated and wanted to say something to the guys.
“All the same,” he said with a sigh. - Find your home. I have both a father and a mother somewhere. As there was hunger, so I got lost from them near Odessa, and now I don’t know where they are. I think to Siberia, to the city of Barnaul, to get through, somewhere I have an aunt - she probably knows the address of her parents. Yes, the whole trouble is that I don't know her last name, but I know that her name is Marya. Yes, I remember a little in person.
- It is difficult to find without a surname, Dergach.
- Difficult, - confirmed Valka. - In, let's take at least three neighboring houses, and even then they have four Maryas, if not even count Manka Kurkina, who is one year old, and goats, which are called Mashki. What is your father's surname, Dergach?
- Elkin Pavel, and they used to call me Mitka. It was already when I involuntarily got into a homeless child, then they gave me a nickname.
- Why, Dergach, are you so suddenly going to leave?
Dergach frowned again.
- And because ... - he said after some thought, - that I ended up here, running away from Cartilage. We are on the main line, on a branch we accidentally bumped into him. He was there with one more, and now, according to some signs, I think that they were not heading here too.
- Well, what do you want? What do you want Cartilage, chief, or what?
- Cartilage? - And Dergach mockingly looked at Yashka, as if surprised at the absurdity of such a question. - If the cartilage catches me, it will certainly kill me.
- But for what will he kill? Is there such a law for him to kill?
- They have a law.
- From whom - from them?
- The real raiders. I ran away with the stirrup, on which they put me ... And they have it so that whoever leaves the stirrup without permission, must be killed, as for treason.
- What is this stirrup?
- How can I tell you ... Well, a guard ... or an observer who is posted near the house for a signal while they are being robbed. So Cartilage put me down, and I ran away on purpose ... because of this, two then burned out ...
- Was there a fire?
- Yes, not a fire ... They burned down - it means they got caught and went to jail ... But why are you standing there, hitting your mouths?
- Wonderfully painful, Dergach, - Valka answered timidly. - And the story is so terrible, and the words are somehow incomprehensible ...
“You’ll live with dogs — you’ll be the dog yourself.” And how harmful this Cartilage is! How many guys he embarrassed, how many people are in correctional colonies because of him! Oh, and I'm tired of this dog's life! All the same, if at least I don't find my own home, I will try with all my might to find a place somewhere - to a shoemaker as an apprentice or to a filing cabinet - somewhere, but I'll stick to it. What is there to say? - finished Dergach and shook his shaggy head. “It’s hard, but if you want, you’ll still get on a good path… Let’s stop talking about it, we’d better run to the river to catch leeches; Goat Wading has terrible ones; then we will swim, but why think about grief ...
At home, mother said to Yashka:
- And here your father was looking for you. Some photograph, he says, did you take.
- What other photo?
- Yes, ask him. He is rummaging in the barn.
“Here's another attack,” thought Yashka. "And what did he need it for?"
Father came out of the barn. He was covered with dust and held in his hands a pile of some yellowed papers.
“Yashenka,” he said affectionately, “haven't you seen where the card with the palm tree is?
- I've seen it somewhere!
- And you go and bring it to me ...
- Good! - said Yashka and was about to go into the rooms, but, on the way, remembering that the card remained in Dergach's pocket, he returned. - Yes, I don’t remember, daddy, where I saw her. And why did you suddenly need it?
- We need it, dear! And you must remember. If you remember and bring it, I'll give you fifty dollars.
- Alty-innik? - even Yashka blossomed. - Aren't you going to deceive?
- I will definitely give it right away.
Yashka disappeared, wondering why his father decided to be so generous. It used to happen that you didn't always beg for a dime on Sunday, and then suddenly a whole fifty kopeck at once.
He jumped out and whistled to Valka.
- Valka! Do you know where Dergach is?
“He must be spending the night with the Wolf. And what?
- Let's run, Valka, to "Grafskoe", I really need him. Take the card from him. My father promised to give me fifty dollars if I bring him.
- It's already dark, Yashka. Until we reach, night will come at all.
- Well, what a night - but fifty dollars. Tomorrow we would buy saltpeter and berthollet salt - we will make a rocket.
- Well, let's run - just in one spirit. By the way, my mother went to the bathhouse.
Rushed. Yashka ran with an even, measured step, like a real runner-athlete. Valka, however, could not do without some freaks. He now quickened, then decreased his step, along the way imitated the snort of the engine, then the chug of the locomotive.
Here is the turn over the river.
- Well, give me a couple ... Tu-tuu! ...
And suddenly the Valka steam locomotive gave the brake at full speed; Yashka also stopped rooted to the spot.
Valka looked in amazement at Yashka, Yashka at Valka, then both turned their heads towards the ruins of "Grafsky". There could be no doubt: a fire was burning in the corner room on the second floor.
- Wow! - said Yashka, coming out of his stupor. - What is this?
- I told you! I said that Dergach lit a fire. Did you see how embarrassed he was when I asked him about the fire?
- But why should he stagger on top? What was he up to there? You know what, let's sneak up and see what else he invented there.
- I'm afraid to spy on something, Yashka.
- Here's another thing, which is scary! Tea, he is with us at the same time. And the card is also needed. Fifty rubles also do not promise every day. Today the dad promised, but the next day he will take it and think it over.
And both boys started down the path again.
What a strange and bizarre castle at night! Huge lime trees with calm peaks barely touch the moon. The gray stone of the ruins is not always distinguishable from the night fog. And the black overgrown pond, in which the stars are reflected, seems to be a deep abyss with fireflies scattered along the bottom.
How strange everything is at night, as if all things had moved from their places. You have to look for everything first. And the old linden tree seems to be not where it was, and the ivy-covered window is not in place.
- Get in, Valka.
- And you?
- And I'll just take off my shoes so that they don't creak.
Stepping quietly with bare feet on the cold stone ladder, Yashka began to make his way upstairs, intending to find out what exactly Dergach was doing there at such a late time.
He almost reached the top step when Valka inadvertently stepped on some kind of board, which creaked treacherously loudly.
And immediately, to the unspeakable horror of the boys, a deaf bass, which could not in any way belong to Dergach, said:
- And as if something rustled downstairs? And another voice, stringy and harsh, replied:
- There is no one here to make noise. Who will climb here at night!
“We must still block the window,” the first continued. - Go downstairs, I saw a mat there, otherwise someone might see the light from the side of the river.
At these words, the boys were even more frightened, since it was necessary to go down past them. They were about to rush right through to the window, but the second voice answered:
- It will cost for today and so. I don't have a spare candle to go down.
Then slowly the guys began to move back.
They got out to the window and, jumping out to the ground, rushed to run at full speed, leaving even Yanshin's hidden shoes unsecured.

XIII

Having reached the gardens, the children, without discussing everything that had happened, agreed to meet early tomorrow and fled to their homes.
Yashka dived under the covers and, covering himself with his head, pretended to be asleep.
The father came in and asked the mother:
- Is Yashka already asleep? Apparently, I did not find a photograph. Oh, and it’s a pity if he doesn’t find it!
- What do you need it for? - the mother, who was already falling asleep, responded from under the blanket.
- That's just the point, that is for what. The photo is a pile of heaps, it is a penny, but they promised me an A for it. I was sitting, reading a newspaper in the gatehouse. Some unknown person approaches me. I guessed right away that he was a newcomer. He greeted and asked: "Will you be Maxim Nefyodovich Babushkin?" - "I'm talking. "Very nice! I would like to talk to you. If you are not busy, then, perhaps, you would have come with me to the neighboring tea house, "Golden Bottom", and there over a bottle of beer I would have explained the essence of the matter to you. " And I was just going home already. “What do you mean,” I say, “you can go in. Wait, I'll just lock the coachman. " We went into the tea room, served us a couple of beers, and he got down to business. It turns out that he came with a friend from the city from some society for the study of Russian antiquity. That is, they study various old buildings, estates and churches. What architect worked, in what year and in what style. And so they became interested in the count's estate. I explained to him that although I had served the count as a gardener for many years, the estate itself had been built a hundred years before me, so I can’t say anything about the architect. As for the greenhouses and the park, it was all under my supervision. Then he began to ask me what plants were grown and what flowers. I answer him and mentioned the word about the palm tree. He does not believe: "A palm tree cannot grow in the wild in such a climate." “How,” I say, “can't it? I will not lie - I still have a photograph from it ”. How his eyes sparkled ... “Sell us this photograph,” he suggests to me, “we'll give you five rubles for it. It is not for you, but for us for the collection. " I just gasped - for all sorts of rubbish yes five rubles! Well, I think it’s true that you don’t know where a person’s luck will fall. And he promised to bring him ... But I just can't find it anywhere.
- Fools people, - said, yawning, mother. - There is nowhere to put them money? Last year, an artist from Sychiha, too, undertook to paint a portrait, and even paid her one ruble per day. Well, he would at least take a sketch of the chairman's wife or someone else that is more attractive, otherwise Sychikha - and even without a portrait, he is dumbfounded to look at her! Yashka will have to cope with the coat by the fall, from the old one he did grow up.
“Eeh, and doo-uraki we are! - thought Yashka, carefully leaning out from under the blanket. - Eh, and cowards! And why were you scared? Peaceful people are examining the estate. And what a good one, they promised my father five rubles. Instead of what to run, we ought to get up to them. Maybe they would have helped in something - you see, they earned two hryvnias, and we run away. And why not dreamed of fear at night! "
Yashka pulled the blanket tighter and heard his father turn the switch, turning off the light.
Yashka turned on his side and closed his eyes. So he lay there for about ten minutes. A sweet dream began to engulf him, and his thoughts began to mix, a piece of some kind of dream flashed, when suddenly he heard that something quietly hit the floor, as if a small piece of plaster had fallen from the ceiling. A minute later, something banged again.
“Vaska the cat must be spoiling in the dark,” thought Yashka and lowered his hand to the floor, looking for something that could scare the cat away. And at that very moment he felt that a small pebble, about the size of a pea, had fallen right on top of his blanket.
“Someone throws themselves through the window. Isn't it Valka already ... But why is he so late? ... "
Yashka leaned out the window. Near the black fence, he barely saw Valka hiding in the shadows. Yashka waved his hand at him, which should have meant: "Go away, I can't get out, my father and mother have just gone to bed." However, Valka stubbornly shook his head and continued to give a signal, calling Yashka.
“Here, the dog, take you! - thought worried Yashka. "What could have happened to him to summon him at midnight?"
He pulled on his pants carefully and listened. Sister Nyurka was fast asleep. Father snored in the next room, but mother was still tossing and turning from side to side.
Yashka silently climbed onto the windowsill, felt the ledge with his hand, and quietly descended to the foundation recess. Along the notch, he reached the corner and only then jumped into the soft ground of the strawberry beds.
- What are you doing? - he went down on Valka. - Did I tell you to wake you up at night?
Instead of answering, Valka excitedly put his fingers to his lips and pulled Yashka by the sleeve.
- So what are you? - Yashka asked impatiently, stopping near the bathhouse and not understanding Valka's excited state. And immediately he understood everything, or rather, he did not understand anything - at the wall of the bath he saw a Wolf tied up from somewhere.
- I just wanted to go to bed, went out to recover, - Valka told, - I see, the dog is running at full swing - and straight to me. I thought I was mad, but out of fear I jumped right onto the fence. And suddenly I see that it is a Wolf.
- But why did Dergach release him?
- I do not know.
- Here's another attack ... Look, the Wolf is all furry, he was somewhere in the water ... What to do with him now?
- Let's tie him to the bathhouse for now ... And in the morning we'll bring him back. He, perhaps, escaped from Dergach.
They tied the dog up in the bathhouse ... Once again we agreed to meet early in the morning and again parted.
Yashka started to make his way home the same way. Already near the window, he turned around, and it seemed to him that the top of the lilac bush that grew in the garden near the bathhouse, somehow unnaturally trembled strongly, as if it had been swayed from below. For some reason, an inexplicable uneasiness took possession of the little boy. He climbed into the room, not knowing why he locked the window and could not sleep for a long time, thinking about what had happened.
Then he must have fallen asleep very soundly, because he woke up suddenly, with a jerk, from a loud noise and barking.
- Yashka, - shouted the mother, - Yashka, wake up, you devil!
Yashka jumped up, thinking nothing.
The barking grew stronger and stronger. It was no longer a simple barking of a dog at a passing traveler, but a desperate anxiety, turning into a frenzied screech.
Nefyodich, grabbing a hunting berdanka from the wall, hastily ran out into the yard.
Half a minute later, the barking stopped at once, and almost immediately there was a rumble of a shot.
Yashka, not remembering himself, jumped out into the yard. Several neighbors came across to meet him. Someone said:
- A man made his way into the bathhouse. Must be a thief. He stabbed the dog with a knife. Nefyodich fired, but by.
- Why did he sneak into the bathhouse? Why did he attack the dog?
“I don’t know why, you’ll ask him.” “What a night! - thought the crazed Yashka, rushing to the bathhouse. "Well, it's night today, there is nothing to say."

XIV

With a knife blow, the Wolf was harmlessly wounded in the upper part of the neck. Father and mother inflicted on Yashka the strictest questioning about how the "poisoned" dog ended up in the bathhouse.
Taking advantage of the favorable moment, Yashka frankly admitted that the Wolf was hidden by him for the time being, and kept silent about where exactly the Wolf was hiding. And since the lawsuit against the Wolf was not approved by the judge, and besides, the dog showed itself to be a real hero, protecting the house from an unknown intruder on the last night, the Wolf was granted amnesty.
Having met with Valka, who was already aware of everything that had happened, Yashka dragged him into the garden and there, stopping in a secluded place, put his hand into his pocket.
- Look, Valka! We didn't see it last night, but this morning I found this tied to the Wolf's collar.
And Valka saw a fragment of a picture - the lower part of a photograph with a palm tree. On the reverse side there were obviously some letters drawn, but it was impossible to make out them, because the blood flowing from the neck of the wounded Wolf stained this entire side of the card.
- How did it get on the Wolf's neck?
- Dergach tied! He wanted to write something to us ... Maybe some misfortune happened to him. Maybe some stone fell from the wall and crushed him or he kicked his leg in the dark.
- Why only half of the card?
Not really deciding anything, the guys went to "Grafsky" to ask Dergach about everything on the spot.
Near the ivy-covered wall, Yashka left Valka to look for the boots he had left yesterday, and he climbed up.
In a dark pantry, he lit a match, and the cigarette butts immediately caught his eye. He raised one. It was the same cigarette butt he had found in the upper room a few days ago.
“These researchers-scientists were already here,” he thought. The match went out. He lit the second one and pulled open the door leading to the basement - there was no one in the basement. Then Yashka got out back and whistled with a prearranged signal. A resounding echo with dozens of fake pere-whistles answered him, but Dergach did not answer.
It became clear that Dergach had disappeared.

Xv

It took two days. The children built a strong kennel for the Wolf, put him on a chain, and the Wolf officially assumed the position of the guard of Yashkin's house.
There was not a word about Dergach.
- He moved somewhere further, - said Valka. - Do you remember, he kept talking about it in recent days. They are like that: a piece of bread in their bosom - and went wherever they looked.
- Why didn't he say goodbye to us? ... And what did he write on the back of the photo?
Yashka took out a fragment of the painting, turned it over, and, deciding that there was nothing to make out here anyway, he threw the card onto the grass.
- Let's go swimming, Valka.
Ten minutes after the children ran away, Nefyodich came out of the garden gate. In his hands he held a crooked garden knife, with which he cut dry branches, and a shovel.
In the courtyard, he stopped just near the place where the guys had recently been talking, and began wrapping a cigarette. His eyes fell by accident on the card lying on the grass.
“Look, the guys are messing up again,” he grumbled, picking up the piece. He turned the find in his hands, took out his glasses and, looking closely at the raised piece, threw up his hands: - Oh, you devil you are! I’m looking, looking for a photograph, twice a day a person comes to fetch it, and they tore it up. Now my five is gone ... Who needs such a piece? - He put the card in his pocket and, with a heavy sigh, went home.
When Yashka and Valka were returning home for dinner, before reaching the gate, they heard the barking of the Wolf and the cry of their father.
- Yes, shut up, you accursed one, look how angry you are! ... Come in, come in. Fear not, he's on a chain.
The gate swung open, and a stranger came out to meet the guys. Short, slightly stooped, with an uneven row of small teeth, bared into a satisfied smile. His right arm was tied with a bandage.
He glanced sideways at the boys and turned abruptly to the opposite side of the sidewalk.
In the courtyard, Yashka ran into his father, who was holding a new crunchy piece of paper in his hand.
Yashka quickly looked at the grass near the fence. The fragment of the photograph he had thrown was not there.
After dinner he went into the garden, lay down and thought. And the more he thought, the more intrusive the thought became attached to him that all the events of the last days were not accidental, but had a strong connection with each other, and that this photographic card was the connecting link of everything that happened.

Xvi

Just at this time, Yashka's father received a vacation and was going to stay with his mother for three days in the city, to the eldest married daughter.
Aunt Daria was invited to manage the house at this time. But Aunt Daria was already old, besides, she was too fat and a little deaf, and therefore her mother began to pump up Yashka in the morning:
- Yes, make sure to go to bed early and do not forget to lock the doors ... Yes, do not bother Nyurka, otherwise I will come and give a thrashing. Yes, if I notice that you, like the last time, opened the cabinet with jam with a nail, then it is better to run out of the house in advance. - Etc. First, the possible Yashkins' crimes were listed, then there was a list of punishments that would follow these crimes.
Yashka answered everything shortly:
- No, Mom. Why are you attached? You would have cracked my neck ahead of time ... I said that I wouldn’t, so I won’t.
But as soon as the cart, which was taking the parents to the station, disappeared, Yashka rushed into the garden like a hurricane, whistling Valka, always ready to appear. And together they began to cackle and gallop across the grass like young foals set free.
- I am now the master of the house! - Yashka declared proudly. - V, how fun it is when the father and mother leave from time to time! Already we with you during these days will invent something funny.
- Come on, Yashka, let the snake go ... let's do it with a rattle.
- The policeman does not order the ace to rattle, because the horses are frightened. Yes, and without a ratchet does not order that the telephone wires are not confused.
- And we will run in the field, further away.
The work was in full swing; took out a glass of flour, made a paste. Yashka brought his father’s newspaper and a washcloth pulled out of the rug, and Valka brought shingles.
When Yashka was already making a "puta", that is, three threads converging at the center, an interesting announcement caught his eye. It said:
The parents of the boy Dmitry Yolkin earnestly ask the person who wrote a note about him in the Rostov newspaper "Molot" to inform their son our address: Saratov province, state farm "Red Plowman".
- Honest mother, but it's Dergach they are looking for! - gasped Yashka. - Do you remember, he told us that someone wrote about him in the newspaper.
- And Dergach doesn't know anything. Maybe he would never know at all - would he get a newspaper?
- And where did he fail! No to wait ... It's a pity all the same, Valka, Dergach. Although he was homeless, he was good. He stood up for us. I cooked a goat for a wolf ... I set up a slingshot. And then he left ... And how glad he was, Valka!
After graduating from the snake, the guys let it dry, then took the Wolf with them and ran into the field to launch it.
But, despite the fact that the snake steadily went up and hummed with a rattle cheerfully, scaring away the ringing larks, the mood of the guys dropped. It was a pity for Dergach and a shame for the fact that he left his happiness so unexpectedly and absurdly. I was going to Siberia to look for some aunt. And where else can you find her without a surname? But is it far from the Saratov province here?
The serpent, unexpectedly saluting, quickly went down. Yashka started to run with all his might, pulling on the thread, but nothing helped. The serpent once again saluted and fell like a stone somewhere on the trees behind the "Grafsky".
They began to pull together a ball of thread, but the threads soon broke. “Eh, my mother wouldn’t have asked! - thought Yashka. - After all, I took the ball from her for a while without asking. We'll have to go looking for snakes. "
They ran. The serpent was sitting high in the branches of one of the trees in the grove, which started from "Grafsky" and adjoined the gloomy Kudimovsky forest. Yashka was about to climb the tree when his attention was attracted by the barking of the Wolf.
Interested, Yashka ran to bark and saw that the Wolf was jumping in the bushes near a narrow path and, happily wagging its tail, was fluttering some black object with its teeth.
The guys snatched his find from the Wolf and looked at each other. It was nothing more than Dergach's cap, shabby and stained with soot.
- Valka, - said Yashka, after thinking a little, - maybe Dergach didn't run away at all? Maybe he was just scared of someone and is hiding somewhere here, in the neighborhood? I know there is a hut nearby.
- And who should he be afraid of?
- Whom! Yes, at least these ones that climb the estate.
- So you yourself told me that these are scientists.
“I know what I said. Yes, something seems to me now, Valka, that they, perhaps, are not really scientists, but some others.
Meanwhile, the Wolf, quietly, squealing joyfully, ran along the path, sniffing at it and never ceasing to wave its tail.
- Look, the Wolf is so happy. Honestly, he sensed the trail of Dergach. You know what, Valka, let's run after the Wolf, he will lead us somewhere. There are even several huts in which they spend the night on the mow. And now it’s not too late. The sun is still high.
Valka hesitated, but, always obedient to the wishes of his comrade, agreed.
- Come on, Wolf! - And Yashka waved his Dergach cap in front of his nose. - Well, look!
The wolf, jumping high, licked Yashka in the face, as if showing that he understood what they wanted from him, buried his nose in the ground, turned and, at once pulling the string stretched from the collar to Yashka's hand, dragged the little boy behind him.
- Look how he loves Dergach.
- Still would! Dergach fed him all the meat and always put him to sleep with him.
How long this rapid advance along the path lasted is hard to say. But it must have been a lot, because the trees had already begun to cast long shadows, and the guys were sweating a lot when the Wolf suddenly stopped, spun around, sniffing at the ground, and resolutely turned right from the path into the forest.
Half an hour later it became clear to Yashka that in the direction where the Wolf was striving, there was not a single place where Dergach could hide, except only ... except only the “hunting lodge”.
The building, known as the "hunting lodge", was seven versts from "Grafsky". Once built at the whim of the count away from the road, on the edge of a huge swamp, it remained almost untouched to this day. True, everything that could be taken away from it was plundered during the war years, but the house itself, built of blocks of gray stone lying in abundance, survived.
After the revolution, one of the burned peasants wanted to adapt the house for housing, but the place turned out to be completely inconvenient: on the one hand - a stone, on the other - swamps. So no one moved into the house, and it was overgrown with weeds and damp moss.
Whole clouds of gnats scurried between the trees. The sun did not warm well through the dense foliage of the moist earth. The women did not come here for mushrooms either, because only milky white violins and fiery red fly agarics grew here.
And only in early spring and towards autumn, when hunting was allowed, could a dull echo of the shot of a lonely hunter hunting ducks be heard. And even then it was rare: there were few of their own hunters in the town, and it was far from the city.
It was to this house that the Wolf dragged the guys along with him.
A little short of the place, Yashka stopped and, passing the string from the dog's collar to Valka, said:
- Stay here. Sit behind this stone and see that the Wolf does not bark. And I will go ahead and scout carefully. And who knows who else you will run into. In which case, let's start the runaway back.
Valka cringed. It was evident that this order was not to his liking, but he knew that Yashka was useless to object, and, besides, the house around the corner was very close. He perched between two large boulders and pulled the eagerly torn Wolf towards him.
Turning around a hill overgrown with bushes, Yashka saw the roof of a "hunting lodge". Hiding behind the foliage, he made his way close and listened.
Apart from the buzzing of mosquitoes, the croaking of frogs and the dreary squeak of some marsh bird, he did not hear a single sound that could tell him that the house was inhabited.
Then Yashka cautiously approached the porch, wondering what made the Wolf so persistently pull to this place. He pulled the door handle and found himself inside the house. There was no one in the first room, but for the fact that people were here recently, they said cleaning of sausages, a bottle of wine and cigarette butts scattered on the floor.
He raised his cigarette butt and again easily recognized the same sort of cigarettes with golden letters that he had found twice in the Grafsky.
“Wow,” he thought, “our researchers seem to have been here already!” There was an armful of hay in the next room. Then he looked into a small side room. Here he immediately came across a box with - some tools and two unknown objects, somewhat similar to shells.
“What does this all mean? - thought Yashka. “Eh, it’s better, perhaps, to get away from here, but what good, they’ll think I’ve come to steal something.”
And he darted back to the porch.

Xvii

And where, in fact, was Dergach at that time?
Having gone, as usual, in the evening to the basement of "Grafsky", to the Wolf, he soon fell asleep. He woke up again from the slight growl of the dog. This time the noise upstairs was heard quite clearly; it intensified and subsided.
Finally, footsteps were heard in the storeroom next to the basement. The light from a lighted candle filtered through the narrow crack of the iron door. Someone shuffled his feet on the stone floor, then hay thrown on the floor rustled, and one could hear how the man lay down on an armful to rest.
"Who else has this brought here?" - thought Dergach. And after patting the Wolf so that he was silent, Dergach, sneaking to the door, looked into the crack.
And although the candle dimly illuminated the stone vaults of the storeroom, Dergach immediately recognized the man.
“Count,” he whispered, his knees trembling. - "Count" returned to his estate, but why? What does he want here? " - A terrible thought burned at the same Dergach ...
That's why he saw Earl and Cartilage at the main line station. They themselves were heading to the place, but he, Dergach, did not find any place where it would be safer to run away, but here, to the place. Clearly, since the Count is here, Cartilage is somewhere nearby.
But what to do now? The wolf barely restrains himself so as not to bark, and the count is not going to leave. Maybe he will even stay here overnight? And at dawn, if he sees the door to the basement and looks in here? What then? Then it's over.
One after another, plans to escape from this trap flashed through Dergach's head. No ... nothing comes out. Then he took out a photograph, pulled out a stub of pencil, which was lying around among other trifles in his pocket, and in the dark wrote at random:
"Yashka, I'm locked ... Cartilage here, in Grafsky, tell the police."
Dergach tied the photo to his collar, dragged the Wolf to the narrow window and stuck the dog's head in there.
The wolf did not force himself to beg ...
It was heard how he plunged into the water and swam, heading for the opposite bank.
Dergach hid in a corner, curled up and covered himself with hay. "Still, it's easier without a dog," he thought, otherwise she would have given out barking. "
A few minutes later, someone else quickly entered the next storeroom, and Dergach immediately recognized Cartilage by his voice.
- Count, - he said abruptly, - something is wrong ...
There are cops somewhere ... I walk past the pond, I hear - something plopped from the wall. I look, the dog is swimming; I waited for her ... I waited until she starts to get out ... I lit her with a lantern - I look, she has a bag tied to her neck ... I already grabbed a revolver to slam her down, but she rushed like mad into the bushes and disappeared ... Wait ... the dog fell into the water from this wall ... Wait, where does this iron door lead?
At these words, Dergach cringed even more and almost stopped breathing.
In the next room they were discussing something in whispers.
Then suddenly the door flew open at once. At first Dergach did not see anyone. But then he saw that both of the raiders had prudently lay down on the floor, obviously fearing that a shot would not be thrown at them from the open door immediately. They had revolvers in their hands.
“There’s no one,” said the Count.
However, Cartilage found himself in two leaps near a heap of hay lying in the corner, and kicked him hard.
A malevolent cry escaped him when he saw Dergach shrinking into a ball in front of him:
- And ... - so you are where ... so you are following us ... you sent a report to someone with a dog, to the police, or what? ... Whose dog was it? ...
And Cartilage hit Dergach from full swing. He staggered and, making a desperate attempt, if not to justify himself, then to gain time, replied:
“I didn’t write to the police, but to my friends, so that they don’t come here tomorrow, because there is someone else here. This is their dog, they hid it here.
- And ... I know ... who they are ... - Cartilage hissed, referring to the count. - The other day they all the time turned around here, near the estate. One of them is the son of that same watchman ... Well, you know what ... to whom I keep going for a photograph ...
- Wait, - the count interrupted him, - the note can still get into the police ... The devil knows what this snake wrote in it. It must be returned at all costs ... otherwise the whole thing may collapse ... The dog must be wandering around the yard until morning ... Try to sneak into the yard and kill it ... and rip off the written on the collar ... This is not a joke ... We are still nothing they did not ... Cartilage struck Dergach again and said angrily:
- Here you go, get confused with the dog now!
And he disappeared.
Cartilage returned an hour and a half later. He was angry, and his right hand was covered in blood.
- Damn dog! - he said. - She was locked in a bathhouse ... I made my way there, stabbed her, but she, like a frenzied woman, dug into my hand ... Then sodom got up, someone even banged after me, but my happiness is that by.
- A note?
“What the hell is a note! There, a whole card was suspended from the collar. I pulled - half ripped off, and half remained there. On, look ...
The count looked at the fragment presented to him and shouted:
- Listen, do you know what this is? This is half of the very photograph that we need; but only the entire bottom of her, which we most need, remained there ... How did she get to you? - he asked, jerking Dergach by the shoulder.
Dergach answered.
- Oh you! - Count Cartilage said venomously. - I was afraid of a dog bite. Well, what would you rip it all off! And the whole thing would be over ... And now what ... to break through the entire section of greenhouses, or what ...
- Eh, you're good too! - Snapped angry Cartilage. - Your Excellency! The owner of the estate cannot show the place where the palm tree grew.
- Fool! Yes, when the peasant drove us out of the estate, I was only twelve years old.
- And whose face is it on the card?
- This is my elder brother. I was very much like him. Yes, and our whole family was alike, we have a family nose and chin ... Well, but what. what to do now?
Cartilage thought and said:
- We need to get out of here just in case. We'll wait a day there, and then we'll see.
- And this? - And the count shook his head, pointing at Dergach lurking in the corner.
“We’ll take this with us, too. I’ll first question him thoroughly how and why he got here.
The raiders quickly got out, and, pushed by kicks, Dergach wandered along the path indicated to him into the forest.
One of the branches caught his cap and threw it to the ground. Dergach could not lift it, because his hands were tightly tied.

Xviii

From the tools scattered on the floor of the "hunting lodge" to which Dergach was brought, he understood that the raiders had arrived here for some serious business.
He was pushed into a large room and flew into a corner.
Recovering a little, Dergach began to look around. He was immediately amazed that the outside window was wide open and had no bars. He stuck his head in there, but the night, black, impenetrable, hid the outlines of all objects.
And immediately Dergach decided to run away. A small shard of glass stuck out in the half-rotted frame of the blown-out window.
Leaning against the windowsill, he began to rub the rope that bound him against the sharp ledge, wondering at the same time why this usually cunning and prudent Cartilage made such an oversight this time and left him in a room from which one could easily escape.
Meanwhile, a squabble was going on in the next room.
- And the devil pulled your daddy, - said Cartilage, - to contact this palm tree! Just think, what a sign: it was today, and the next day it has rotted. Well, I would at least take some kind of stone ... well, if not a stone, then a solid tree - a linden or an oak, or even a palm tree! And how he did not have enough to realize that without him the peasants would not begin to build this palm tree, like him, in glass every winter and it would disappear in the first frost!
“Who knew,” objected the count. - Who then thought that all this was for a long time and in earnest! Yes, not only my father, but none of ours thought so. Everyone hoped that the revolution would last a month ... two ... and then everything would go on as before. After all, as they hoped for the white army!
- So we got hope. You won't dig up the whole garden! Then they will take you at once on suspicion. All this must be done quickly and imperceptibly - I found a place, dug it out, opened it and scurry away ... I’m wondering if it’s possible to call the old gardener to the estate ... Let him directly show the place where the palm tree grew.
- Dangerous ... guess maybe.
- He would only show us, but there ... - Here Cartilage whistled.
- Well, and what to do with this?
And Dergach understood that the question was raised about him.
- With this? ... But let's have a snack and rest, and then I will interrogate him, and head into the swamp ... I have old accounts with him. All the same, no sense will come out of him. Then the brute ran away with a stirrup.
“Wait! - thought Dergach, shaking off the cut ropes from his hands. "Only you saw me!"
He carefully climbed onto the windowsill, intending to jump down, when he suddenly staggered and convulsively grabbed the frame jamb with his hands.
The sky turned a little gray, the stars faded, and with weak flashes of pre-dawn lightning, Dergach made out right under the window a steep deep cliff, below which, from behind densely overgrown yellow water lilies, glimpses of water peeped out, covering a viscous swamp smelling of rot.
And only now Dergach understood why he was left unattended in a room with an open window, and only now he felt the full horror of his situation.
But the years spent in the constant struggle for existence, spending the night under bridges, dangerous travel under carriages and all kinds of obstacles that had to be overcome during the years of vagrancy, did not pass without a trace for Dergach. Dergach did not want to give up yet. Standing on the windowsill, he began to look around. And then at the top, above the window overlooking the cliff, he noticed another, small window leading to the attic. But before him, even standing up to his full height, Dergach could not reach at least one and a half arshins.
"Eh, if this and that way to fly into the quagmire, - thought, bitterly pursing his lips, Dergach, - if this and that disappear, then it's better to try all the same."
His plan was to open the half of the outer frame to its full capacity, climb onto the top crossbar, grab the ledge of the dormer and, making his way into the attic, run from there through the exit door.
Elsewhere Dergach would have done it without much difficulty - he was tenacious, light and flexible - but here the whole point was that the frame was very dilapidated, weakly held on the hinges and could not bear the weight of the boy.
Yet there was no other way out.
Dergach threw open the window all the way and pushed some piece of wood between the window sill and the lower hinge so that the window would not get sloppy. He looked down, and it seemed to him that the black maw of the predatory quagmire was opening wide, waiting for the moment when it would break loose. He averted his eyes and no longer looked down.
Then, with the care of a circus gymnast weighing the slightest movement, he stepped foot on the lower bar. Immediately there was a light but ominous crunch, and the frame sagged slightly. Then, clinging to the ledges of the unevenly folded wall, trying to reduce his weight as much as possible, he climbed to the middle crossbar. Again something snapped and several screws flew out of their hinges. Dergach swayed and, digging his fingers into the wall, froze, expecting that he was about to fly down with the frame.
Now the most difficult thing remained, it was necessary to put your foot on the upper crossbar, push off at once and grab the ledge of the dormer, which was already almost nearby.
Dergach's legs sprung up, his fingers, ready to cling to the ledge with a dead grip, spread wide. “Well,” he thought, “it's time!…”
And he lunged with the speed of a snake, feeling that someone had stepped on its tail. There was a strong crack, and the frame, torn off by the jolt, began to slowly fall, pulling out with its weight the last screws that had not yet flown out.
And Dergach, already crawling through the dormer window, heard her plop dully into the fertile swamp.
Having got out to the attic, Dergach rushed to the exit door. But as soon as he pushed the door, he realized that it was bolted from the outside and he was again locked.
Then he lay down on the dusty earthen flooring ... it seems, for the first time in all the years of homelessness, he felt that tears of despair were about to sprinkle from his eyes.
Meanwhile, the crack of the frame that had fallen off alarmed the raiders. Voices were heard below.
“He threw himself out the window,” said the count.
- He thought, probably, that he will come out. Well, you can't swim out of there! Can you feel the stench rising up? This disturbed swamp gas rises ...
- And what about now?
- What is "how"? He drowned, and there is a road for him. After the interrogation, I myself wanted to send him along the same path.

XIX

Little by little, the lost hope of salvation began to return to Dergach, who realized that the raiders considered him dead.
At dawn, Cartilage and the Count disappeared somewhere. Dergach, taking advantage of their absence, tried all the ways to escape from his dungeon, but the door was firmly locked from the outside and did not give in at all. There was also nothing to disassemble the roof.
Another day passed. Dergach was hungry and exhausted. During this time, he ate only a piece of bread that was accidentally left in his pocket, and drank two handfuls of water that seeped through a crack in the roof during the night rain.
On the third day, the raiders returned. They were excited about something.
- The main thing, - said Cartilage, - the old man shows me a fragment of the photograph, and he says: "The boys tore it up, found only half on the grass." I almost jumped. “All the same,” I say, “let's have at least half.” And when I gave him the promised A, he was almost stunned with joy.
- So today!
- Today. I've already got the horse ... we'll load it with a pack and transport it here, then we'll open it at night, and it's over.
Soon they both left.
“Today they will bring something, probably a steel box, and they will break it,” Dergach thought, remembering the tools he had seen below. - And then they will hide ... And what am I? Will I really be left starving like this? " And Dergach, completely exhausted, lay down on the ground and, nesting like a mouse on the gray dust, fell into a kind of half-oblivion.
He came to his senses in the evening, when he heard footsteps below. Back, he thought.
But this time there were some kind of creeping steps, uncertain, as if someone outside was quietly, tiptoeing through the rooms.
Dergach crawled to the door and looked through the crack. There was no one to be seen at the entrance. He waited. Again footsteps were heard, and someone came out onto the porch, carefully looking around and, apparently, about to run away.
- Yashka! - Dergach suddenly shouted, staggering. - Yashka! I'm here ... here, locked in the attic ...
A minute later Yashka was already at the door.
- Dergach, - he answered excitedly, - you can't unlock here ... a huge lock hangs and is all rusty ...
Dergach looked like a wolf cub, just locked in a cage. He pulled at the door, got angry and bit his lip ...
- Rather, it is necessary, they must return now ... What, does not work? Well, then get me a rope from below, I'll go down the old road, and you will drag me through the window ...
Yashka ran to fetch the rope and pushed it to Dergach through the crack in the door ... The rope slipped through tightly, and while Dergach was pulling it, he briefly told Yashka about everything that had happened.
- Well, now ... run to the side room and wait for me to start going down ... Wait!
The guys shuddered ... Somewhere nearby a horse whinnied ...
- Run ... - Dergach whispered, - they are returning ... Run to the police, tell them that the box is being broken open Cartilage and the count, bandits ... Tell me that it will be too late by dawn ...
And Yashka, rolling down the stairs, crashed into the bushes, without stopping, waved his hand to the lurking Valka ... And, despite the branches of the trees, painfully whipping his face, the frightened guys ran to the place.

XX

As soon as Dergach had time to pull a thick rope through the gap to him, the Count and Cartilage approached the house, holding the bridle of the loaded horse.
Stamping their feet heavily, the raiders carried a small square object into the rooms, and from the way something hit the floor hard, Dergach guessed that it was a fireproof box.
Then, throughout the night below, there was a fuss, creak and some hiss, similar to the noise of a lit primus.
Obviously, the progress was slow, for several times desperate curses were heard from below.
Dawn came, and still no help came. And now Dergach was not so much interested in the thought of how soon he would have to get out, but whether the police would be able to arrive on time and capture the accursed Cartilage before the raiders would break open the box and hide from here.
Joyful exclamations from below prompted Dergach that the box had finally been opened. Several minutes of silence and hasty fuss followed. Downstairs, they must have examined the contents of the box.
- Phew, it's hot ... I'm sweating all over, - said Cartilage.
- My tongue almost cracked too ... Go to the spring, fetch some water.
But Cartilage, obviously for reasons that seemed to him quite weighty, replied:
- Here's another! Why should I go alone ... let's go together ... and then immediately, without wasting a minute, we'll take everything and wash off, otherwise the horses must have missed it already ...
- Are you afraid that I would not take everything and run away? the Count asked mockingly. - Well, okay, let's go to drink together.
Through the crack Dergach saw how they hurriedly went to the edge and disappeared into the bushes. “Now they will return, take everything that was in the box, and disappear,” Dergach thought. - And again Cartilage will be free, and again always be afraid and tremble, lest he get in your way. Eh! Why don't our guys come! "
And suddenly a daring thought occurred to Dergach.
- Oh, Cartilage! he whispered. - You always knew only that to beat and beat me, you wanted to throw me into the swamp ... Wait, Cartilage! You and I will settle accounts now.
Obviously, some kind of fever intoxicated Dergach, because before he, trembling at the mere mention of the name of Cartilage, would never have dared to take such a risky act.
He quickly lowered the rope from the dormer onto the sheer wall ... fastened one end to the pillar that supported the roof and slid down the rope. Finding himself on the windowsill of a side room, he jumped down and, running into the next room, firmly slammed the heavy door and slid it on the iron bolt.
"Try it, get here now!" - he thought gloatingly, looking around the strong grates of the windows overlooking the forest.
He could see the raiders returning back.
He stood outside the door. Footsteps were heard on the porch. The door shuddered. Shuddered again.
And immediately outside there was an angry and at the same time frightened exclamation:
- What the hell! Someone locked themselves in there.
Then Dergach shouted from behind the door with undisguised angry triumph:
- Cartilage ... you, dog, wanted to throw me into the swamp! Throw yourself there now out of anger! I will not open it for you, and you will not get anything of what is in the steel box.
The roar of a shot, which rang out in response ... and the bullet that pierced the door, did not confuse Dergach, for he prudently stood behind the stone wall.
- Open better, son of a dog! - the Count and Cartilage roared in one voice. - Open it, otherwise we'll break down the door anyway!
In response to this, Dergach laughed somehow unnaturally loud with excitement. He knew for sure that the raiders could not break down the door with their bare hands, because all their tools were left in the house. It was important for him to gain time and detain the bandits until help came.
Suddenly he fell like a stone to the floor, because the count, sneaking from the other side, thrust his hand with a revolver into the lattice window.
Dergach crawled close to the wall. The count's hand twisted, trying to bend enough to reach Dergach with a bullet.
The bullet pierced the floor a quarter of it. The Count bent his arm through force and fired again. The bullet moved two more inches towards Dergach. But the count's hand was not rubber, and he could no longer bend it. Then the count jumped away from the window and ran around the corner, obviously having thought of another plan.
Taking advantage of this moment, Dergach darted into the side room, the window of which overlooked the swamp.
Here he was comparatively safe. - But why aren't ours coming? he whispered with concern. - After all, I will not be able to hold out for a very long time. Cartilage will think of something ... The fact that Cartilage has already invented something, he became convinced in a few minutes, having felt the smell of burning.
He leaned out into the next room and saw that the scraps of hay thrown through the grate were burning on the floor. He wanted to trample, but immediately jumped back, because the bullet hit the stone wall, not far from his head.
“But they will burn! - Dergach thought in fear. - They will throw hay until the floor is on fire. But why don't the policemen come to the rescue? "
Obviously Cartilage knew what it was doing. Among the apparatus brought by the hijackers to break into the cabinet were flammable liquids. The flame, reaching them, raged at once with tenfold force, spreading across the floor and spreading a heavy, suffocating smoke.
“Lost! - thought, breathless, Dergach. - He disappeared altogether. The smoke went into my eyes, nose, throat. Dergach's head was spinning, he staggered and leaned against the wall.
“Lost completely ...” - he thought again, already completely losing consciousness.
His knees gave way, and - he fell, no longer hearing how the shots of the policemen who had arrived and opened fire rumbled through the forest.

XXI

Dergach woke up in the hospital. And the first thing he paid attention to was the whiteness surrounding him. White walls, white pillows, white beds. A woman in a white coat came up to him and said:
- Well, here I woke up, dear! Now, drink this one.
And, raising himself weakly on one elbow, Dergach asked:
- Where is Cartilage?
- Sleep ... sleep ... - the white woman answered him. - Stay calm.
As if in a dream Dergach saw a man with glasses, who took his hand.
It was calm, warm and quiet, and most importantly, everything around was so white and clean. There was no trace of black rags and soot-stained hands.
- Sleep! the woman told him again. - You will soon recover and soon you will be at home now.
And Dergach - a little tramp, only by huge efforts of will got out of the way of the raiders on the firm road, - closed his eyes, repeating in a barely audible whisper: "Soon home."
A day later, Yashka and Valka were on a date with Dergach. Both of them were dressed in huge robes, combed and washed. Dergach smiled at them, nodding his slender, cropped head. At first everyone was silent, not knowing how to start a conversation in such an unusual environment, then Yashka said:
- Dergach! Get well soon. The count was arrested, he turned out to be a real count. They dug a box under the palm tree, hidden by the old count before running towards the whites. There was a lot of stuff in the box, but because of you, our militiamen managed to seize everything. Come out soon, all the boys will follow you in herds now, because you are a hero! - Where's the Cartilage?
- Cartilage killed when firing back.
- Dergach, - Valka said timidly, - and your family was found on the ad. And the pioneers are bothering you with a ticket. And the Wolf bows to you too ... He loves you very much, Dergach.
Dergach sighed. A good childish smile spread over his washed, still pale face, and, closing his eyes, he said joyfully:
- And how good it is to live ...
1928