TWO EXILED FRIENDS MEETING.
"I know another man, a Russian nobleman, who escaped from Siberia and went back over the route by which he had come. For convenience I will call him Ivanoff, though that was not his name. He accomplished it in this way:
"He had concealed quite a sum of money about his person, which the guards failed to find after searching him repeatedly. His offence was political, and he was sentenced to twenty years' exile. While his convoy was on the road between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, he arranged to change names with Petrovitch, a criminal who had been sentenced to three years' banishment, and was to remain near Irkutsk. Ivanoff was to go beyond Lake Baikal, whence escape is much more difficult. For one hundred roubles the criminal consented to the change, and to take his chances for the result.
"The substitution was made at the depot in Irkutsk, where the names were called off and the new convoys made out. The convoy for the trans-Baikal was first made up, and when Ivanoff's name was read the burglar stepped forward and answered the question as to his sentence. The officers who had accompanied them from Krasnoyarsk were not present, and so there was no great danger of the fraud being discovered; the convoy was made up, the new officers moved off, and that was the last my friend saw of his hired substitute.
ESCAPING EXILES CROSSING A STREAM.
"Ivanoff (under his new name of Petrovitch) was sent to live in a village about twenty miles from Irkutsk, and required to report twice a week to the police. He found employment with a peasant farmer, and managed to communicate with a friend in Irkutsk, though not without much difficulty. The peasant used to send him to market with the produce of the farm, as he found that Ivanoff could obtain better prices than himself; the fact was he generally sold to his friend, who purposely overpaid him, and if he did not find his friend he added a little to the amount out of his own pocket. Ivanoff and his friend haggled a great deal over their transactions, and thus conversed without arousing suspicion.