Danka Shchus, orphaned son of a Red revolutionary sailor, whose father was tortured and executed by the warlord Sidor Lyuty before his eyes, and his sister Ksanka join Valerka, a former schoolboy, and Yashka, a devil-may-care gypsy.

The informal White Army bandits (Cossacks of the anarchist Ataman Gnat Burnash) who are requisitioning cattle from the villagers of Zbruyevka.

The ataman demagogically speaks to a local peasant woman about freedom that must be paid for, and falsely promises to eventually return a dozen cows to her private ownership.

At night the four youngsters, who succeed by never forgetting their pledge of mutual assistance and calling themselves Avengers, use the superstitions of the Cossacks, scare the convoy with homemade "ghosts" and drive the cattle back to the village, including returning the cow to the peasant woman.

The scene he saw so impresses the harmless White man - Ilyukha Verekhov, that throughout the rest of the film he tells the story of the dead on the night road in various companies, but almost no one believes him.

There, a party started by bandits takes place, but Yashka the gypsy entertains and gets the Sidor Lyuty's squad drunk.

Avengers attack a carriage and kill a Cossack teenager, who was traveling with a letter to Ataman Burnash to serve him.

The Avengers escape on a train freed from capture, crossing the burning bridge to their people (it is unclear how Ksanka got there, she did not participate in the last operation).