penal offense and would probably lead to imprisonment and an investigation. To leave the letters and photograph in the trunk would be to insure their discovery and confiscation on the following morning, and that might create a very embarrassing situation for me, as well as for the authors of the letters and their friends. The two young men finally concluded to make an attempt to get the trunk open without removing the cords or breaking the seals, and as the letters and photograph were near the bottom, and as the lid could not be raised even if the trunk were unlocked, they decided to take out a part of the bottom and afterward replace it. By working all the rest of the night they succeeded in getting out one of the bottom boards, obtained the dangerous letters and the photograph, put the board back without disturbing any of the seals, and when the police came in the morning stood by with unruffled serenity and saw the trunk searched. Of course nothing more dangerous than a hair-brush, and nothing more incriminating than a hotel-bill could be found.
There was another little episode at Krasnoyársk which gave us some uneasiness, and that was the offensive behavior of two unknown men towards us one night in a bookstore. The reader will perhaps remember the mysterious pistol-shot that was fired through the partition of our room late one night in Chíta. That incident first suggested to me the possibility of becoming accidentally involved in some sort of affray or mystery that would give the police a plausible excuse for taking us temporarily into custody and making an examination of our baggage. I knew that, on account of the nature of the papers and documents that I had in my possession, such a search would be absolutely fatal, and I resolved to be extremely careful not to fall into any snare of that kind should it be set for me. I even refrained, on one occasion, from going to the aid of a woman who was being cruelly and brutally beaten late at night in the other half of a house where I was call-
