FRANK SIEGEL was one of those enthusiastic journalists to whose zeal the press of America owes its distinctive position. Enterprise, unhampered by too much discretion, was the gospel which had been hammered into him. Be first, down the other fellow, make the scoop, get the facts, discreetly if possible, but get them, serve hot for the public taste, and let all else go hang. The editor and the public will forgive anything except a beat for the opposition show.

Siegel lived up to this. All the world and everything in it was to him so much copy; and he looked at everything with an eye, and that a very sharp one, for its newspaper possibilities.

When off duty his eye could also appreciate a beautiful face, and he was charmed by Helga, who did her utmost to win her way into his favour.

In particular, she was sympathetic in regard to his present disappointment at having left Petersburg at the moment of a Nihilist trouble.

“I’d give a sackful of dollars to get at the bottom of a Nihilist show,” he exclaimed. “Either side, Government or the other. What a country this would be for a pressman, if they weren’t so tight lipped! I’ve sent some stuff across, but of course I’ve had to pad it a lot.”

“What have you heard about this, M. Siegel?” asked Helga.

“The conductor gave it away to me. There was a telegram telling him to look out for a woman on the train—and a man, too, he thought; but he wasn’t clear. It seems a swoop was made on a haunt last night, and a lot of arrests there and elsewhere followed. But they wanted the woman most, and she’d gone.”

“Oh!” I murmured, and Helga and I exchanged glances.

“Lord, what asses those Russian police must be. Imagine what a mess we should have if we muddled our press inquiries as they do their business. They should apprentice a few of their fellows to the Screecher, and let ’em learn the art of making beats.”

“Beats, M. Siegel?” asked Helga, puzzled.

He explained the enormous virtues of exclusive news, and gave her a telling illustration.

“If this were the States, which thank God it isn’t—I can say that safely as none of us are Russians—what would happen? Probably we should have known all about this raid before it was ordered; but assume we hadn’t, and it caught us by surprise. Well, we should have had some one on the spot right there, and the moment we heard the birds had flown we should have wired our men to watch every train—this one for instance, most likely with a recognizable description of the fugitives. Say, Harper, wouldn’t it be bully to do the trick with no machinery and spot them on the train. What a scoop!” and he laughed pleasantly.

“The fugitives might not relish such a press,” said I, with more meaning than he divined.

“I’m going to have a try,” he replied. “Do you remember Marvyn, Harold Marvyn, at Harvard; that thin dark chap we used to call the spectre? He’s at the Embassy here, and I’ve wired him to wire me a description of them if he can get it. I’m going to look for ’em at the frontier, and if I don’t find ’em there, I’m off back to the capital to look up things. I wish I’d never come away; worse luck.”

“You would like to hand them over to the police, M. Siegel?” asked Helga.

“Gee wiss, no, madame. If we were in the States, yes; but here, what are the police to me? I’m thinking of the Screecher and the interview I could get.” Helga laughed and said:

“And being in Russia, monsieur, if you interfered you would probably be clapped into one of their gaols as an accomplice.”

“Say, Harper,” he cried, turning to me, “wouldn’t that be just lovely! Gee, think of the headlines. Russia’s prisons from the inside. I could make half a column of them. Ah, I wish it could be worked,” and he sighed.

“You have some queer ambitions, Siegel,” I said. “You might find it easier to get in than to get out again. There’s Siberia, you know—not exactly a pleasure resort, either.”

“I came through there. Looks all right from the outside; what they let you see of it, you know; but I’d like to scratch the surface off.”

“You might not have far to look for the fugitive Nihilists, M. Siegel,” said Helga steadily.

“Don’t excite his zeal,” I put in hastily.

“Can you help me, really?” he cried.

“I am one and M. Denver is the other,” she replied calmly.

He stared at her and then at me in amazement, and laughed.

“You’re pulling my leg,” he said.

“I don’t know what that means, but what I say is true,” replied Helga.

He turned serious then, being convinced.

“Just light the gas for me, Harper,” he said.

“It is true. We are both Nihilist suspects and are making a bolt for the frontier;” and I went on to tell him something of what had got us into the mess.

“Can I use it?” he asked, his first thought naturally, for the Screecher.

“No, not our part; but if you care to take a hand you can use your own experience.”

“It’s the chance of a lifetime. Of course I will,” he declared at once, adding characteristically: “I may do you a turn at the same time.”

Then Helga told her plan and we discussed it together. Siegel’s enthusiasm rose and fell as the risk of his being arrested in mistake appeared greater or less. Indeed he was just as anxious to be caught as I was to escape; and in the end we came to an arrangement.

Siegel was to take my place as Harper C. Denver and to carry my passport, and I was to take his. Helga was to remain Madame de Courvaix and to act independently of us both; and we were all to travel in separate carriages and endeavour to pass the barriers at the frontier alone.

“I am candid with you, M. Siegel,” said Helga; “I think you will be stopped. M. Denver’s name is known and we ought to have had another passport. I think I shall get through, and I’m sure he will. And that is my principal concern.”

“I’ll try and act up to the part,” said Siegel gleefuly.

“If you are stopped, I shall not attempt to get through,” I said to Helga.

“But that is just what you must do. You must go first. Think, if we are both stopped, how disastrous it may be. You will take these with you;” and she handed me the papers which had played so great a part in the past few days. “With these, and your freedom and your Embassy at your back, you will gain the Emperor’s presence, and then his friendship for you should do the rest. It is our one sound chance.”

“But it looks like deserting you,” I protested. “You ask too much. It’s cowardly.”

“What could you do if we were both detained? You must do this. You must. And you must be the first to pass the barrier.”

“Say, Harper, you can give the thing the necessary colour by asking for that wire from Marvyn for me.”I gave in, reluctantly; and at Dunaberg, the next stop, feeling something like a coward I left the carriage to find a seat elsewhere.

“Courage, my friend,” said Helga, giving me her hand with a smile. “Courage, and we shall make the rest of the journey to Berlin safely and together.”

“Pray God it will be so,” I answered.

“This is just bully,” cried Siegel in the highest spirits. “See me do the conspirator when you two are through. I hope to glory they won’t let me pass.”

During the remaining run to the frontier I was profoundly anxious and miserable. I knew Helga would not have taken such a step as to bring Siegel into the matter if she had not felt there was real danger for us both; and that she gave into my care the papers which were of such vital import, showed that she regarded her own chances as very doubtful.

I had unbounded confidence in her wit and ready resource. She would get through if any one could; but the gate was a very narrow one. If the new development came from Kalkov, as I could not doubt, she was so well known that a personal description of her would be sent in full.

And then I perceived the shrewdness of her present manoeuvre. Siegel and I were sufficiently alike for a written description of one to pass for that of the other. We were both clean shaven, somewhere about the same build and height and colour; and when I read his description in his identity paper—drawn up for the purpose of his long journey through Russian territory—I saw it was quite possible to apply it to me.

When we reached Vilna the official preparations began. A number of men were at the depot and made a careful scrutiny of the passengers, and eventually all of them boarded the train. One got into the compartment where I sat with Siegel’s writing case open on my knee.

He watched me write for a time and then asked me for a light.I handed him Siegel’s matchbox—a curio he had picked up in China—and made a commonplace remark in execrable Russian. I had heard Siegel’s Russian.

“Monsieur speaks French?” he asked me politely, returning the box.

“Un poo, pas bocoo.” He recognized the accent immediately and smiled. “Je suis Americain; San Francisco, voo savvy.”

“German, perhaps?” he ventured.

“Ya wohl, etwas; aber Englisch am besten;” and I laughed.

“I speak English,” he answered, “and have been in England.”

“Been in America?”

“No, sir.”

“Ah!” and I smiled indulgently as if he had missed Heaven.

“You are a writer?” he asked next with pleasant inquisitiveness.

“Yes. I’m Siegel of the Screecher; which means that,” I added in reply to his look of bewilderment, and gave him one of Siegel’s cards. “Screecher is American for Eagle,” I explained. “And what are you?”

But he was not communicative. He smiled and gestured deprecatingly, as if he were of no importance.

“Just a private individual.”

“Travelled much?”

“No, not far. To England and in France and in Germany.”

“Ah, I’ve just been round the world;” and I rattled away with a general description of many things I did not know and many places I had not seen; but I took care to say nothing about any part of European Russia.

What did I think of Petersburg? I had only stayed there long enough to see my friend Harold Marvyn at the Embassy. If I’d known I’d have stayed longer; and I skated on to the thin ice of the Nihilist raid, playing Siegel’s part as he had performed for us. I ended by saying I was expecting a telegram from the Embassy at Kovna—could he tell me how to get it quickly?

He could and did and offered to help me. On this I became professionally confidential. I told him my wish to know more of the Nihilist business, and asked him whether it would probably be worth my while to return to Petersburg; and so managed that he was led to ask all about me and my newspaper. Then I showed him enough to convince him of my good faith.

I watched him gradually lose interest in me and my concerns; and I knew from this that any suspicions or hopes about me, with which he had entered the carriage were dissipated. I was not a Nihilist; no credit was to be gained from detecting and arresting me; and he wished to bother himself no more about me.

We were in this stage of the proceedings, and I was wondering whether Siegel had also been interviewed and if so with what results, when my companion said we were close to Kovna and that I had better put my things together. He was kind enough to assist me and I noticed that he was at great pains to see as many of my papers as he could and to read them. I gave him ample opportunity; and an easy-going fool he no doubt thought me in consequence.

At Kovna his confidence in my good faith communicated itself to the other officials and my path was made easy in consequence. He walked with me to the barrier; a significant glance or two passed between him and the officials; a very cursory look was taken at my passport and I was through.

I had not risked looking for either Helga or Siegel; but when I had passed through I hung about and soon made a discovery which filled me with concern.

A great distinction was made between the men and the women. Scarcely any difficulty was made in regard to the men; some sharp glances and a few questions at the most. But all the women between twenty and fifty years of age were taken away for separate examination.

I saw Helga come up, hand over her passport, and submit to the close and searching scrutiny with a kind of impatient frankness that was admirable acting. But she was led away like the rest for further examination of her papers.

I was waiting with an anxiety which can be imagined for her to appear again, when I was witness of the little comedy in which Siegel played the chief part.

He had put up his coat collar and drawn down his cap so that as little of his face as possible was to be seen, and he came striding along casting quick suspicious glances on all sides, much after the manner of the conventional conspirator of burlesque.

In this way he tried to thrust his way past the officials. Any one with the faintest sense of humour would have seen he was fooling; but humour is not the strong point of Russian officialism. The men by the barrier whispered together as he approached and then clustered close like wasps round an over ripe peach.

“Your passport, monsieur, if you please,” said one, stopping him.

“Passport, what do you mean?” he asked in a truly cosmopolitan language.

“Your passport; you know what that is,” said the man trying French.

“Haven’t one,” he answered. He told me afterwards he had intentionally torn up mine, thinking he had better leave the officials to connect him with me. “Americans don’t want passports.”

“Your name, monsieur.”

“Shan’t tell you. I’m an American, that’s enough. Don’t you interfere with me,” he said threateningly; and made as if to go on.Half a dozen hands were thrust out instantly to stop him. One man tried to see more of his face and was glancing at a paper. He whispered something to his colleague, who asked—

“Will you raise your hat, monsieur?”

“No, I won’t.”

“You cannot pass, monsieur.”

“We’ll see about that;” and he drew his hands from his pockets and clenched his fists. I really feared he was going to show fight.

“Will you step this way, if you please, monsieur?” said an elderly man coming forward. Apparently a man in higher authority.

“What for?” asked Siegel brusquely.

“There has probably been some mistake which I can put right for you,” was the suavely spoken reply. “You can then resume your journey.”

“All right,” said Siegel, after a moment’s pause; and the two went off followed by several of the other men.

“Do you think it is?” asked one of the officials at the barrier of his colleague.

“I’m sure it is,” was the reply. “He’ll resume his journey all right, but—” he jerked his thumb backwards and winked. And the incident was closed so far as the public were concerned.

The women passengers were now beginning to come out from a separate door; but I saw nothing of Helga and my hopes for her safety ebbed as the number of the women increased.

Some of them were speaking of their examination, and I heard to my dismay that in more than one case there had been a most rigorous personal search. They were loud in protest at the indignity.

“She actually made me take down my hair to see if I had anything concealed in it,” said a German woman to a friend, as the two passed me. “You never saw such a disgraceful scene.”

Still there was no sign of Helga; and keen though I was for news of her, when we were told the train would soon start, I dared not linger lest I should draw attention and suspicion upon myself.

I was in a fever of anxiety during the last few minutes as I stood by the door of the car straining my hungry eyes in vain for a sight of her.

Then the detective who had been on the train with me came along, his face wearing a satisfied expression. He caught sight of me, smiled and nodded as he passed, then stopped, turned and came up and spoke.

“Bon voyage, monsieur. Then you are not going back?”

“I’m still in two minds. But I suppose it’s nothing serious.”

I spoke as indifferently as I could.

“Oh no—not for your country. I don’t know, though. I could give you some news.”

“I’m always ready for that,” I replied with an eager smile.

“I’m a police agent,” he said, as if the admission would astound me. I was therefore promptly astounded.

“You!” I cried. “Impossible. Why, I thought——” and left the thought to his imagination.

“What did you think?” He chuckled.

“I put you down for a merchant or a landowner. But a police agent!” and I waved my hand in amazement. “I’ve always heard you are the smartest men in Europe. Now I know it. A police agent!” I was lost in wonderment.

“Do you know what I thought you were?”

“You didn’t take me for another, I suppose?” It was a joke and he enjoyed it and laughed.

“No, I thought you were a Nihilist!”

“A Nihilist! Well, that’s worse than ever. An American a Nihilist?”

The thing was incredulous as my tone showed.

“They come from all countries, monsieur. I was looking for a countryman of yours, a Mr. Damper—no, Denver.”“Great Scott. You don’t mean it!”

“We caught him, too. He was in the train; and a woman too—one of the most dangerous Nihilists in the Empire.”

“A woman! Oh, you police agents are wonderful! But do you mean that women are in this?”

“They are often the worst. She is a pretty woman, too, this one. You’d better get in, monsieur, there’s the signal—unless you think of going back to Petersburg.”

“When is the next train?”

“Starts in an hour from now. But you can catch the return mail at Insterburg.”

“Perhaps that’ll be better. I can get my baggage. If I do come back I shall look out for you,” I said, as I got into the carriage.

“I am going back at once to Vilna. Bon voyage, monsieur.”

“Good-bye. A pretty woman you say? Will it go hard with her, do you suppose?” I asked in a compassionate tone as the train moved.

He shook his head and smiled significantly.

“She’ll go to the mines, if what they say is true.”

That was what that infernal old Kalkov had said; and he was making his words good.

And it was from that I had to save her.

Thank God she had been shrewder than I; and that I was free to make my effort.

If I had been in Siegel’s place—and then despite the tragedy I thought of the comedy and smiled.

But the smile was very fleeting.