“These strangers are Americans. They have an apparatus (my camera) for making drawings of our district. They are important prisoners, so we must take good care they do not get away!” My friend and I argued long and loud to convince the men that, in the first place, we were not agents of the United States government, and secondly, that the United States was not contemplating an invasion of Russia at that point. But all to no avail. We were carried off to the gendarmerie and duly given a restful room all to ourselves. Two gendarmes were left to guard us. My companion was a timid soul who gloomily predicted a tragic and ignoble end for us. So, largely to cheer him, I tried to gain the good-will of our guards. I made a surprisingly good start in that direction when I gave them each a little money for vodka, for it immediately developed that they were so appreciative of this generosity that they were not unwilling we should make our escape. Our driver was still lingering about outside the gendarmerie, trying to make out what was to become of us, and who was to remunerate him for the miles he had already brought us. Suddenly, deciding to be bold, we opened the door of the room where we had been put and walked out. It was the easiest thing in the world. As we drove off our two guards raised their vodka bottles in token of their regards! We calmly continued our journey. Seven versts farther on we came upon a peasant fair where many starving peasants were auctioning off their horses and cattle for whatever they would bring. The buyers were nearly all Tartars. I got out my camera to photograph a particularly dilapidated horse fairly tottering from hunger, being sold for its meat (what there was left) to a swarthy Moslem, when a party of mounted police suddenly surrounded us, and we were again put under arrest. They carried us to the headquarters of the local priestoff, who examined us at great length and finally sent us under armed escort to the very gendarmerie we had cleared out of an hour before.