The North Pacific

with this difference: they had been serfs; Ivan was freeborn. His father now owned the hut in which he lived with his family of wife and three children-two girls, besides Ivan; he also owned

went by and his son grew from boyhood to sturdy young manhood. Every evening the family knelt before the crucifix on the wall of the living-room, and prayed for themselves, their country, and their "Little Father," the Czar, who spent al

father one day. The older man had a great tawny beard and m

true, m

nearly

my fa

anxiously, "surely our bo

enderly but manfully, "if the

and was duly enrolled in the 11th Regiment of Infantry

ic of the band, when they paraded in the great square and the crowds gathered to see. But the drill, drill, drill became tedious, and it was

Ivan took out his little brass cross, his "ikon," which, like every other Russian soldier, he carried in his bosom, and murmured a praye

d of his next neighbour in the ranks,

They say there

gainst

Japan

hey? Are they savage

Ivan. We shall know

against them? Whe

least idea of the answer to either question; nor had any man

e Czar's

asant. Ivan felt that he was really a soldier. When a lump came into his throat at the thought of the little hut in the lonely whi

rted suddenly they fell against each other. Some swore and even struck out, but most were as

ing. My foot is iron"; and when he was thrown against a neighbour:

squatted in the cars, silent, uncomplaining. Why should they find fault with cold and hunger and fatigue? It was t

way. But whether it was seventy miles or seven thousand the rank and file of the army hardly knew or cared. Cold, hungry, stiff from constrained position, they bore all privations

Siberia. Here there was another halt, for the railway itself came to

ale, which heaped up huge drifts and flung them away again, like a child at play. Behind the regiment of fur-capped soldiers, huddled on the frozen shore, was home; before them, what seemed an Arctic sea. The sno

eir turn were overshadowed by snow-capped peaks. The lake at this point is forty miles wide. No bridge could span its storm-swept surface, no tunnel could be driven beneath its sombre depths. How was the obstacle to be surmounted? A weaker nation would have given up the task, as the French tired of working at the Panama Canal; Russia, ponderous, tireless, determined, almost irresistible, moved on. In the science of Physics, the momentum of a moving body is thus analysed and expressed: M = m × v. In other words, it equals

the eastern or Trans-Baikal section. From November to April the lake is frozen over, but during at least half of that time en

began cutting a path through the solid rock for advancing Russia. Twenty-seven tunnels were to be bored, and have since been completed. While Iva

nsellors of state in St. Petersburg knew there was urgent need. A railroad was begun upon the ice itself, and before March was in actual operation. A thousand feet of water gloomed beneath the t

body of infantry, including Ivan's regiment, having hastily swallowed a breakfast of army rations, set out on the march across the forty miles of ice plain, at "fatigue step."

cataract, and howled like wolf-packs; the air was so filled with drift that each man simply followed his file-leader, with no idea of the direction of the march, the van being guided by telegraph-poles set in the ice at short intervals of space. Hands and feet became

as no longer there. The subaltern who had answered him on the shore was also missing

ourage, comrades!" shouted Ivan again. His voice was lost in the ceaseless roar of the gale. Ivan peered out from under the mask

wiser? Ivan halted a moment, pondering in his dull way. Suddenly he remembered. That would be disobedience of orders. His officer had said, "It is the Czar's command!" What madness, to think of

silently onward. Whether they were comrades of his own regiment he neither knew nor cared. He was once mor

one of their number staggered aside and disappeared they cl

al

hey asked no questions. They remained standing, as they had moved, b

a dozen merchant travellers with special passes, refreshed themselves with soup and steaming tea. A steady stream of open sleighs passe

came down the l

out a snatch of song; these soon dropped or wandered away. When the winter storm of Siberia first assaults it is brutal in its blows, its piercing thrusts, its agonising rack-torment of cold. Gradually it

had lessened by five hundred, who would never face the unknown enemies of the Far East. Ivan was among t

and served out, with regular army rations. The men's drawn faces relaxed. They warmed their half-frozen limbs. Rough jokes passed. The