Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/418

The provincial procureur Skrínikof and a colonel of gendarmes from Krasnoyársk were there making an investigation of the circumstances of Máslof's flight; the local police, of course, were stimulated to unwonted vigilance by the result of their previous negligence and by the presence of these high officers of the Crown from the provincial capital; and it was extremely difficult for us to open communication with the politicals without the authorities' knowledge. In these circumstances it seemed to me necessary to proceed with great caution, and to make the acquaintance of the exiles in a manner that should appear to be wholly accidental. I soon learned, from Mr. Martiánof, that several of them had taken an active interest in the museum, had been of great assistance in the collection and classification of specimens, and were in the habit of frequenting both the museum and the library. I should have been very dull and slow-witted if, in the light of this information, I had failed to see that archæology and anthropology were my trump cards, and that the best possible thing for me to do was to cultivate science and take a profound interest in that museum. Fortunately I was a member of the American Geographical Society of New York and of the Anthropological Society of Washington, and had a sufficiently general smattering of natural science to discuss any branch of it with laymen and the police, even if I could not rise to the level of a professional like Martiánof. I therefore not only visited the museum at my earliest convenience, and took a deep anthropological interest in the Káchinski Tatárs, but asked Mr. Martiánof to allow us to take a Soyóte plow, a lot of copper knives and axes, and half a dozen bronze mirrors to our room, where we could study them and make drawings of them at our leisure, and where, of course, they would be seen by any suspicious official who happened to call upon us, and would be taken by him as indications of the perfectly innocent and praise-worthy nature of our aims and pursuits. The result of our