The Miller sun. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 190?-19??, 1906-07-25
Prisoners and Capfives
By II. S. MERRIMAN
80

scribed route alone. / see great changes
here. Russia is awakening-she is rub
bing her eyes. God keep you all three ~
Matthew Mark Easton indicated by a
little jerk of the head that the letter was
finished. Then, after looking at it Curl
ously for a moment. he folded it and put
1t away in his pocket.
old Smith, he said, wakes quite
poetic at tines
Yes" answered Tyars, pouring out
his coffee, but there is a keen business
man behind the poetry
One" observed Easton, in his terse
way, "of the sharpest needles in Russia,
and quite the sharpest in Siberia at the
present moment"
Ii will need to be; though / think
that the worst of his journey is over.
The cream Is, as he says, at Moscow.
Once beyond Mini he will find milk, then
mix and water, and finally beyond r.
kutsk the thinnest water. The official in
tellect in Siberia is not of a brilliant de.
scription. Pavloski can outwit every
gendarme or Cossack commandment he
meets, and once out of Irkutsk they need
not fear the law. They will only have
Nature to compete with, and Nature al
ways gives fair play. When they have
assembled they will retreat north like an
organized army before a rabble, for there
are not enough Cossacks and gendarmes
In Northern Siberia to form anything
like an efficient corps of pursuit. They
may follow, but ! shall have the fugitiyes
on board and away long before they reach
the seaboard."
now many are there in Yakutsk? 2"
Two thousand altogether, soldiers and
Cossacks. They have no means of trans
port n no commissariat corps. BY the
time that the news travels south to Ya-
kutsk, that there is a body of supposed
exlles to the north, our men will have
gained such an advantage that pursuit
would be absurd"
1T seems" replied Easton, 80 very
simple that / wonder no one has tried it
before
simply because no one has had the
money. | know several whaling captains
who would be ready enough to try, pro-
vided they were paid. The worst danger
was the chance of the three men being
captured as soon as they entered Russia.
Ihey are now at their posts in Siberia.
IN May they meet surreptitiously on the
southern slope of the Verkoioniska. cross
the mountains, and they are safe. The
three leaders will then be together, and
they viii retreat north as arranged.
soaring the Yamschicks into obedience
and taking all the post deer and dogs
with them, so that an immediate pursuit
VIII pc impossible. l think" added the
organizer of this extraordinary plot,
that we shall succeed"
AS the middle of February approacbed
Claud Tyars was TRANQUILITY engaged in
MS preparations. Several ladies were
pressed to express their disapproyal of
this affectation of hard work and failed
to see why his evenings should be de-
voted to a task for which he had plenty
time during the day.
1t would be hard to determine how
ar Tyars realized his position. He was
/ dfsciplinarian of the finest mold. and II
. probable that he had never, up to this
line, allowed for a the fact that
lie loved Helen Grace. This determine
Ion TO cultivate the blindness of those
mo VIII not see was not dictated by cow
lrdice; because Claud Tyars was. like
physically powerful men, inclined,
0 exaggerate the practice of facing dis
facts with both eyes open. He
lad refused to realize this most incon-
'enient truth, because he was oppressed
a vague fear that realization meant
He now suspected that Miss Winter
lad known all along that Helen Grace
vas not the same to him as other wom-
n. Added to this was a suspicion that
he calmly and deliberately undertook
he task of forcing him to say as much
o Helen herself. He could think this
without vanity.
Matthew Mark Easton stood and
as you may have watched these
low, strong rivers, and knew that his
riend was passing on to some new coun-
ry with a purpose which he could not
tay nor turn aside. Probably he felt a
title doubtful of Claud Tyars-felt that
e could not rely upon him to act like
Their men. At any moment the unexpect-
might supervene.
Deeply, however, as he felt his respon-
anxious as he was, he never lost
pirit. He was one of those men whose
ourage rises to the occasion, and while
e recognized fully that without Claud
Vars failure was inevitable, he would
OF blind himself into the belief that the
was absolutely safe.
CHAPTER XXI.
AT the risk of being accused OF betray-
the secrets OF the sex, this opportunity