The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-12-19

COuuIIYs Oul ODJCNt To friendly; we're merely making rec ords of their personnel and activities. Miss volkov is secretary of your so- ciety. and I'd like to fins out few facts about her My friend tells me that you know her quite we'll"
 "Yes, I kBow Princess Sonya for twelve years, and her father before that
 "Princess Sonya-?"
 "Her father is Prince Stephn Vol kov."
 Curt caught his breath sharply. "Prince?" he managed. "A courtesy title?"
 Plekhanov smiled, a bit condo scen6ingly. You know very little about Russian heraldry, friend. The Voikovs are an old Kiev nobility, one of the oldest in the Empire" He told his son, Bring our guests the picture that Prince Stephn gave us"
 Curt whistled beneath his breath. Sonya's father prince! He had sus- pected she was well-born. But he had never imagined that her blood was quite so blue, and she herself had not once hinted that she was of noble birth
 "You mentioned her father-does he live here in Canada?"
 "At Victoria. And her brother Carl"
 What do they do?"
 When Prince Stephn first came over, he accepted work in lumber yard as a grader of timber. Like any common muzhik" Plekhanoy made a gesture of shame at his country mans lack of pride. He rose in his employment; he is some official now, and Carl is field expert for the com. pany. For a time Sonya was govern ess in a rich family at Victoria. Now she is teaching language in pri- vate school"
 THE son handed Curt photo, a medium-sized studio portrait. With a queer mixture of feelings Curt looked at the picture of Sonya's father. At his first glance he saw Sonya's resemblance to him-her stubborn determination and that proud poise to her head came natu- ral-he could see the traits in every line of her fathers face.
 He passed the photo to Baldwin and listened to what Plekhanov was saying
 He had first met Prince Stephn more than a generation ago in St. Petersburg, Plekhanov said. A man of brilliant parts, Sonya's father had been very close to the imperial court at one time, but his liberal views finally brought him into clash with the reaetionary clique that sur rounded the Czarina. As genteel banishment to Siberia, he was made commissar of the Crown forests along the Yanisei.
 " HCH lHG pliC tl l4N threw in with Kerensky's Provision al Government. organized the vast Irkurtz region in southern Siberia and ruled it for tie White Partizans. When Kerensky in turn was over. thrown by the Leninists, the Reds put a price on his head. His long liberal record did not save him; nobleman, an estate holder. mod crate, he was automatically con demned.
 At Irkutsk, Sonyas mother and sister and younger brother were seized and shot, their home burned, their immediate friends killed. Her father was at Vetemsk on the Lena when he got word of the butchery, and by provident mercy Sonya and Carl were with him at the time Taking his two surviving children, he fled into the Lena Woods on horseback, a hunted fugitive; and began the long hcrror of the escape.
 q met the Volkovs in a woods or Lake Baikal," Plekhanov recounted his heart full of his subject. "Sonya was but thirteen then, and her brother fifteen It had taken Prince Stephn all winter to bring them across that four Hundred miles from Vetemsk. They had frozen, starved; had been wounded; had fought bat. ties to get through the cordons ot their enemies. Once they met roy ing party of Terrorists, six of them and wiped out all six and took their guns, horses, food. They were all three wounded badly when they came to Baikal, and sick with mala- ria, and nearly driven mad-not by what they had endured, but by what they had seen.
 "Our little band of refugees at Baikal were betrayed by fisherman. A company of Reds, recruited from the convict colony at Chita, sur prised us one night and rode down our camp. with pistols and axes. Only few of us managed to escape in the dark and across a river or ice rafts.'
 (Copyyi0ht. f9ss. William B. MotceyyJ
 Curt heare fonorrnvy etran1e