Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/395

Rh "Who are you?" I inquired in astonishment.

"I am a vagabond," he said quietly and seriously.

"What is your name?"

"Iván Dontremember," he replied; and then glancing around, and seeing that none of the convoy officers were near, he added in a low tone, "My real name is John Anderson, and I am from Riga."

"How do you happen to know English?" I asked.

"I am of English descent; and, besides that, I was once a sailor, and have been in English ports."

At this point the approach of Captain Gudím put a stop to our colloquy. The number of "brodyágs," or vagabonds, in this party was very large, and nearly all of them were runaway convicts of the "Dontremember" family, who had been recaptured in Western Siberia, or had surrendered themselves during the previous winter in order to escape starvation.

"I have no doubt," said "Captain Gudím to me, "that there are brodyágs in this very party who have escaped and been sent back to the mines half a dozen times."

"Boys!" he shouted suddenly, "how many of you are now going to the mines for the sixth time?"

"Mnógo yest" [There are lots of them], replied several voices; and finally one gray-bearded convict in leg-fetters came forward and admitted that he had made four escapes from the mines, and that he was going into penal servitude for the fifth time. In other words, this man had traversed eight times on foot the distance of nearly 2000 miles between Tomsk and the mines of Kará.

"I know brodyágs," said Captain Gudím, "who have been over this road sixteen times in leg-fetters, and who have come back sixteen times across the steppes and through the woods. God only knows how they live through it!"

When one considers that crossing Eastern Siberia thirty-two times on foot is about equivalent to walking twice the