The daily Alaskan., 1907-02-11
--sf. Ha-- a'f--ss--s Siberian
 Prison Love
tOriglnal.l

pTlSOu. put lN CnNN' NNO SSolH OiNt' OAA the very threshold of life, and con demned to spend twenty years-from youth to the beginning of old age-in confinement.
 Tick, tickety, tick.
 Some one is rapping on the heating pipe which runs up to the floor above. All political prisoners know the code, and l was not long In spelling out the remainder of q sentence. The begin 1ing had lost.
 "-so lonely"
 l must condenSe two years into a Jew sentences. The rapper, occupying cell directly above mine, was q girl, Anna Yronsky, the daughter of a university professor. She had been sent to Siberia for teaching the peas ants. She had been placed in solitary confinement and at the time she made my acquaintance was on the verge of Insanity. To save her l eXerted my self to the utmost, encouraging her, telling her of escapes of which l had heard and of escapes l invented. For this sympathy she was grateful and was not long in turning her grati- tude to love.
 There is nothing like love to Stimu- late both hope and endeayor. l spent all my time in planning an escape both for her and me. Escape was not i'm possible, for the prison system was bad and the prison officials corrupt. It was reCapture that l feared. To gain time after leaving the prison and by time distance l hit upon the plan of having dummies in our cells.
 This plan l communicated to Anna, suggesting that when the guard brought her meals she should always sit in the same position and answer no questions This was to get the guard used to what 8 dummy would be. Anna began the process at once. as l did. By our rap ping code other prisoners told us that there was an hour, supper time, when one might walk out of the prison un-i seen: but, as Anna and l could not rely upon escaping at the same time, we were to meet, If possible, at a dis Lant town where exileS having served their terms iD prison were permitted to live.
 made a dummy out of my mattress and my bedclothIng. Every time my guard appeared l sat with my head bent on my bed as though in melan. choly. I arranged by the code with q prisoner at the end of the corridor that at three coughs from me he was to shrIek. One evening I gave the sig nal. The guard, without relOCking my cell. hurried to the prisoner. l set up my dummy and walked out. l sue ceeded in getting out of the prison without being seen except by one man, who supposed l was privileged con- vict. It was very dark, and hid in a corner of the wall. l ha6 noticed from my cell window a RRce where one could get on a low bdilding with q chance of escape. Finding q piece of scantling In the prison yard, l used 1t first to climb on the building and next to reach the top of the wall, from which 1 jumped down and escaped.
 My dummy must have worked sue cessfully, for l was not pursued, and if pursued should surely have been captured. l went to the rendezvous and waited there as long as dared for Anna VronSky, but she did not appear. Then l reluctantly made my way to Russia, stopping just beyond the bor- der, where 1 remained under an as sumed name. Indeed, my identity with my former self was unrecognizable. l made a living trading in furs and kept a lookout for escaped prisoners, from some of whom l hoped to hear some thing of Anna Vronsky.
 It seems strange that man should love and continue to love a girl he has never seen. but there was more be- tween me and my fellow sufferer than between most lovers who had been brought up together. And this is the reason why l remained in what to me was the most dangerous position in Russia. near the Siberian border.
 Six years passed. One day l went up to Kara bay to make purchases and on my way back stopped for supper and the night at little farmhouse, the only occupants being an old woman and her niece. From the moment l saw the niece I felt that she alone could take the place of my imprisoned love chatted with the two women till the aunt went to bed. The girl was about to follow her when l, fancying from sadness stamped on her face that she might have suffered as a political pris- ouar, tapped with q lead pencil on the table from force of habit, spelling words that l had often spelled in prison:
 Anna, love you"
 The change in the girl before me was astonishing. She turned first white, then rosy red, catching at the same time at the table.
 Are you
 "Yes, and your
 I started forward and clasped her h my arms. Oh, the happiness of that a,,,1,ronaI Eypanf for o,1r hp9I.TS bpat-