When we again emerged from this gray ocean of clouds it was twilight. But suddenly, before, behind and on the sides, white smoke clouds appeared bursting shrapnel. Still flying above the enemy's position, we were directly exposed to their artillery fire. Devil with it! The fire grew worse. I knew from the little trembles that the machine was getting blow upon blow, but it never entered my mind that those shrapnel balls meant death to me. Something in man remains unmoved by logic and knowledge--especially when you're in the air. There, of a sudden, a white-yellow fire in front of me. The machine reared up. The major seemed to reel to his feet. Blood was pouring from his shoulder. The covering of the wings was tattered. The motor buzzed and roared as before, but the screw was missing. A grenat shattered our propellor, but, thank heaven, did no worse. My machine began sinking to earth. I succeeded in gliding and threw the biplane down into the woods. The branches and tree tops crashed to splinters. I struck the steering gear and then was no longer aware of what went on around me. When I again became conscious I was lying next to Major G. on the forest ground surrounded by a group of German reservists. Recognizing the machine, they had forced themselves into the forest in small numbers to save us. Major G. had to be removed to the nearest hospital. I only received a crushed leg. YOUR AFFECTIONATE SON. (The two foregoing stories are here retold by permission of the _New York American_, to whom they were sent from Germany.) TALES FROM SIBERIA--WHEN THE PRISON DOORS OPENED _Journey Home of a Hundred Thousand Exiles_ _Told by (name withheld), an Eye-Witness_ I--"RUSSIA IS A REPUBLIC--YOU ARE FREE" The exiles in the Irkutsk prisons were watching eight fellow prisoners who were being flogged. Suddenly, in the doorway, an official appeared. It was the Provincial State Attorney. There was a look of great tidings in his face. "Russia is a republic," he cried. "You are free." The news of the revolution had reached across the vast stretches of Siberia. It was a moment of tense excitement. Bewilderment and then jubilation beset the exiles. An hour later began one of the strangest spectacles in modern history--the exodus from Siberia. It is estimated that a hundred thousand political exiles began their race back to Russia. Traveling from the most inaccessible mines and settlements, they journeyed by sledge or trudged on foot to the nearest point on the Trans-Siberian railway. It was a race against time. The Spring thaw was approaching. If the exiles did not reach the railroad within two weeks the roads would be impassable. The wilderness would become a sea of mud. Far in the north, in the coldest settlements of the lower Lena, it would be impossible to move forward until the ice breaks on the river two months later.