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162 In my own case they made an attack upon my car at a small station on the line toward Vladivostok, where I had stopped to inspect a local chapter of our organization. The gang fired several volleys through the windows and the sides of the car, but without any injuries, as no one happened to be within. Some hours later, during the search made in a small village near the station, the chief of the gang was arrested in the house of a railway official, who was an active member of a branch of The Union of the Russian Nation.

The hunghutzes also made some attempts against railroad bridges, which were repulsed but which furnished the monarchists with the opportunity to accuse the Union of Workers with the desire to destroy the bridges and thus create insurmountable difficulties with the army left at Ssupingkai. Such puerile and incredible intrigues engendered in the army disquiet and anger.

After a time, the Tsarist followers tried new methods. They allied themselves with the individuals with criminal records who are always plentiful in the towns of the Russian Far East and who had been attracted in even greater numbers by the war, coming both from European Russia and from the Oriental ports through Shanghai. There began attacks on houses, street hold-ups and incendiary attempts of every sort, all of them executed so boldly and swiftly that the culprits were never taken.

"This is not the work of hunghutzes" observed von Ziegler. "I am sure that these operators are Georgians, Armenians and other adventurers from the Caucasus, for I recognize clearly their working methods."

The Captain proved to be quite correct in suspecting the freebooting sons of the towering Colchis ranges, a direct proof of which I myself brought in for him.