Cavalier County farmers press. (Langdon, N.D.) 1920-1921, 1921-01-20

recently on the shores Of the Caspian
sea, after tramping and getting lifts"
across a good part of Siberia and Rus
STA. They saw a ship loading grain.
The two stole down to the shore,
picked up a couple Of sacks Of grain,
fell in line u~nobtrusively 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 We're across the Caspian,
several hundred miles nearer home.
Another Austrian officer who had al
so tramped thousands Of miles, was
arrested by Russian Bolshevik troops.
when he had almost sneaked across
the Russian-Rumanian frontier. When
he told who and what he was the Boil
shevik commander sneered.
Austrian officer?" he explained.
'An old trick. You are a spy. You
will be shot"
He was locked up. With the re-
sourcefulness which their wanderings
instill into these men, he found a loose
plank in the wall Of his wooden prison
and worked for two whole days until
he had almost dislodged it 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.
Gall up with me" 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 a river. There a boat
was in waiting.
II am a Bolshevik officer, but I am
also a Roumanian," said the guide,
"and during the war 1 was a prisoner
in Austria, where I was well 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 cramps"
Stiff Prussian junkers, accustomed to
walk the Berlin streets staring coldly
through their monocles, elbowlng civil
ians from the sidewalk, now shiver 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 lieutenants 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 go 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 bribe q
Bolshevlk sentry to let them ferry
themselves across a Siberian river.
ITO help get the prisoners horne
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 W
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 whick
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 yer Siberian and Russian
steppes to whom the gifts will be
useless.