Leo Tolstoy

“ The hindmost troikas had not yet passed when my driver turned clumsily and struck the attached horses with the sledge shafts. One of the troika team thereupon fell heavily, tearing away the traces and plunging to one side.
"You cock-eyed devil, don't you see where you're going, driving over people like that? Devil take you!" ”

“ And now, he'll only make the horses starve to death besides coming to grief himself" repeated the God-fearing little muzhik.
"But what is that black thing yonder?" said I, observing some black objects just in front of us.
"A train of wagons! — a nice way of going along, I must say," continued he when we had come abreast with the huge wagons covered with mats, going one after another on wheels. "Look! not a soul to be seen; they are all asleep. ”

“ One of the drivers, a very tall man, got out of the sledge, silently detached his three horses," saddled and bridled one of them, and, crunching the snow beneath him, disappeared in the direction of his comrade. We, with the two other horses, went after the courier's troika, which, ringing its bell, set off in front at full gallop; we just let ourselves go without troubling any more about the road,
"A pretty way of catching them !" said my driver, alluding to the other driver, who had gone off after the horses ”