This time our guards were not so easily won over. We were detained there till afternoon, and there seemed to be some doubt as to what disposition should be made of us. At first we were informed that we would be sent back to the city of Samara, where the governor would determine our fate. Later, however, we were carried to the railroad station and told that we might have the freedom of the waiting-room (but not to step outside!), pending the arrival of a train. No train came until three o’clock the next morning, and then it was a train from Samara. Into this we were bundled, and informed that we might go where we pleased after the train had passed the boundary of that province. The adjoining province was upon the slopes of the lower Ural Mountains, so I gave that as our destination. As a matter of fact this was our direction anyway, so the only result of the incidents of the day was that I was slightly hurried on my journey toward Siberia. We left the train at Ufa, the capital of the province of Ufa. CHAPTER XVII IN THE LAND OF LOST LEADERS Across the Urals--Into Siberia--The Treimen waiting-prison--First exiles--The journey to Tobolsk--Secret night meeting of politicals--Hardships of exile--Splendid personnel of prisoners--Forced into daily contact with foul disease--Starvation--Life among the Ostiaks--Lack of medical aid--Siberia, a monumental crime--The journey back. Ufa held little to interest me, so that after only a brief pause I continued my journey east to Cheliabinsk, the western terminal of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It had not originally been my intention to traverse Siberia. European Russia I did want to cover thoroughly, but when I found myself here on the edge of Asia, within a night’s ride of the “land of lost leaders,” I felt justified in making an excursion far enough over the border to bring me to the nearest places of exile, where I could meet and talk with men and women whom Russia had expelled. Instead of pursuing the line of the Trans-Siberian road, however, I decided to follow the old route used by exiles in the days when no railroad penetrated even to the borders of Siberia. To reach this port it was necessary for me to go north from Cheliabinsk, along the ridge of the Ural Mountains, and down into Yekaterinburg, a famous mining-center, and the starting-point of a short railroad line running to Tyumen, the most northerly point reached by railroad in Siberia. From Cheliabinsk to Yekaterinburg was one long day’s journey. Autumn was already descending upon the land and the trees were tossing their dried and brown leaves over the steep slopes of the hills into the valleys below, where a lingering green still carpeted the earth.