The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1921-01-13

recently on the shores Of the Caspian
sea, after tramping and getting lifts"
across good part of Siberia and Rus
STA. They saw ship loading grain.
The two stole down to the shore.
picked up couple Of sacks of grain,
fell In line unobtrusively with the 9th.
er leaders, and soon found themselves
on board the ship. Having got rid Of
the sacks. they slowed away and In a
few days were across the Caspian,
several hundred miles nearer home.
Another Austrian ofiicer who had al.
SO tramped thousands Of miles, was
arrested by Russian Bolshevik troops
when he had almost sneaked across
the Russia:-Rumanian frontier. When
he told who and what he was the Boil
shevik commander sneered.
Austrian officer?" he explained.
IAN old trick. You are spy. You
will be Shot"
He was locked up. With the re-
sourcefulness which their wanderngs
instill into these men. he found loose
plank in the wall of his wooden prison
and worked for two whole days until
he had almost dislodged 1t sufficiently
to crawl out into the open. Suddenly
the door of the prison was flung open
In the dead Of night and an officer
strobe into the room.
"All up with mel" thought the Aus.
TRAN. They've come to fetch me out
to the firing squad"
"Follow me-" whispered the other.
He led the prisoner out of the prison
to the shore Of q river. There boat
was In waiting.
II am Bolshevik officer, but am
also Roumanian," said the guide.
land during the war was prisoner
in Austria, where I was we'll treated.
Get into the boat and row across the
river. On the other side you will be
a free man."
Prussian Junkers Suffer.
A strange army, these ''tramps."
Stiff Prussian junkers. accustomed to
walk the Berlin streets staring coldly
through their monocles elbowing civil
ians from the sidewalk, now SILVER in
peasants huts and lie fiat on the roofs
of freight cars in close comradeship
with men whom they used to think
worthy only of backing their riding
boots. Dudes" from the gay Vienna
Of before the war, spick and span
young ieutenants and captains, who
thought only of wearing smart uni
forms and going to the races and Dip
ping deep into night life, now tramp
across Siberia and Russia, barefoot
and ragged, unshorn and covered with
vermin. and with them 60 men who
were private soldiers rough Austrian
peasants for whom the words cap
tain" and lieutenant" have lost all
meaning, for whom these young sprigs
of the upper classes are nothing but
the man whom they met hiding in a
barn or the young chap who stole a
pair Of shoes with which to bride a
Bolshevik sentry to let them ferry
themselves across q Siberian river.
ITO help get the prisoners home
from Russia" pretty girls in Vienna
say to you, dangling contribution
boxes before your eyes. And there is
scarcely anybody who does not give
The stories which one hears about
these men-sometimes from their own
lips-are quite enough to loosen purse
strings in order to help others of their
kind out of their prison house.
And the thought of the winter which
is closing down upon us makes one
all the more willing to give. But
there are thousands Of these victims
Of war. thousands Of the army of new
'tramps" now resolutely moving west.
ward over Siberian and Russian
steppes to whom the gifts will be
useless.