Page:The web (1919).djvu/414

 has about 20,000 inhabitants, and is a small farming community with a floating population. Much of the work of the division was in stopping local gossip and loose talking. The League did, however, locate one deserter, who was duly turned over.

MISSOURI

The tracing of a deserter may take a hundred pages in a file. A certain man registered in St. Louis, but never turned in his questionnaire. He was classified by the Adjutant General of Missouri as a deserter, and A. P. L. was requested to find him. Search revealed him in James City, Pennsylvania. The chief of police of a nearby town found the man in bed. The deserter, whose name may be called Bates, resisted fiercely. It was stated of him that he was the first man the chief of police ever arrested who succeeded in breaking a pair of handcuffs. He fought all the time until he was put in jail. Mr. Bates, it is to be hoped, fought equally well in the army. He certainly got his chance to do so.

D. W. B, from St. Louis, was once in the 108th Infantry, but vanished therefrom, leaving his uniform in New York with a friend. One paragraph, the last page in the file, will cover the case of Mr. B: "As subject was apprehended in Buffalo, the commanding officer at Fort Niagara was communicated with, and he detailed a sergeant to come to Buffalo on December 17. The sergeant took B into custody and conveyed him to Fort Niagara, where he is at present."

Kansas City, among other cases, turned in a love letter written by a local young lady to a Japanese, Heroshirmo, at present living in Japan. The letter begins: "Dear Heroshirmo: How I want to write to you pages and pages of something, I am not sure what. I want to tell you first about the beautiful summer that has just passed, how beautiful the trees and flowers were, how infinite and blue the sky"—but perhaps that will be enough.

The A. P. L. noticed the post-mark and thought that this sort of correspondence ought to be looked into. It should. The Japanese had once stopped in Kansas City as a member