Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/362

340 Irkútsk would be "prejudicial to public tranquillity," and Volkhófski was therefore directed to "move on." Leaving his little daughter Véra with acquaintances in Irkútsk, he proceeded to Tróitskosvásk, a small town on the frontier of Mongolia, where one of his friends, a political exile named Charúshin, had for some time been living. The police there, however, had been apprised of his expulsion from Irkútsk, and assuming, of course, that he must be a very dangerous or a very troublesome man, they hastened to inform him that he could not be permitted to take up his residence in Tróitskosávsk. They did not care whither he went, but he must go somewhere beyond the limits of their jurisdiction. Indignant and disheartened, Volkhófski then resolved to abandon temporarily his little daughter Véra, whom he had left in Irkútsk, and make his escape, if possible, to the United States by way of the Pacific Ocean. He had a little money derived from the sale of a small volume of poems which he had published before leaving Tomsk, and if that should fail before he reached his destination, he determined to work as a stevedore, or a common laborer of some sort, until he should earn enough to go on. His objective point was the city of Washington, where he expected to find me. The nearest seaport on the Pacific where he could hope to get on board a foreign steamer was Vládivostók, about 2800 miles away. The distance to be traversed under the eyes of a suspicious and hostile police was immense; but Volkhófski was cautious, prudent, and experienced, and assuming the character of a retired army officer he set out, with "free" horses, for the head waters of the Amúr River, where he expected to take a steamer. I cannot, of course, go into the details of his difficult and perilous journey from Tróitskosávsk to Strétinsk, from Strétinsk down the Amúr by steamer to Khabarófka, and from Khabarófka up the Ússurí and across Lake Khánka to