I guess any one that wanted could take a ticket to Kroten." "A good many do," Jesson assented calmly, "and some never come back.
America and Russia are on friendly terms, yet two men in my branch of the service--good fellows they were, too--started out from Washington for Kroten six months ago.

Neither of them has been heard of since; neither ever will be." "How's it done ?" Chalmers asked curiously.
"In the first place," Jesson explained, "the city itself stands at the arm of the river, in a sort of cul-de-sac, with absolutely untraversable mountains on three sides of it.

All the roads have to come around the plain and enter from eastwards.

There is only one line of railway, so that all the approaches into the city are easily guarded." "That's all right geographically, of course," Nigel admitted, "but what earthly excuse can any one make for keeping tourists or travellers out of the place if they want to go there ?" "That is perhaps the most ingenious thing of all," Jesson replied.

"You know that Russia is now practically a tranquil country, but there are certain bands of the extreme Bolshevistic faction who never gave in to authority and who practically exist in the little-known places by means of marauding expeditions.