How The Town Was Saved. Once upon a time, long, long ago, the town of Tlemcen, in Algeria; was besieged by the enemy and all the! people in the town were almost starv- Every day food became more scarce and meat and bread brought} such unheard of prices that the poor er citizens almost perished from hunger. People beeame very ill and children and old people suffered so terribly that every one was in despair and even the strongest men seemed to " | | if she h |p lose all hope. - | At last the mayor, in desperation, ' called a meeting of the citizerfs and | with the sick and our children are cry- ing for feed. We have come to the end of ull our resources." The men looked at one another in despair, for they did not know what to do, and they felt that the mayor | was right, for sooner or later they would all die of starvation. The wo- men were all weeping and wailing and begging the men to save them from the enemy, but no one knew just what to do, when suddenly an old woman stepped before the mayor and, making a low bow, she said: "No! No! We will never give up to the enemy. 'I have a plan which wiil save the town if you will do as I command. die. No! No!" The people looked in amazement at the old woman and they saw how her eyes glistened and flashed with scorn, and as she shrieked out the words, "No! No!" some of the other women took up her cry and they all began to wail out, "No! No! We shall not die!" The mayor was so much impressed with all of this that a glimmer of hope came to him and he said: "What is your name, good woman?" "My name is Aicha, and | am your servant, but to-day you must do my bidding," she answered, and she drew up her bent figure and pointed a long, th bony finger at the mayor. "Tell me your plan, good Aicha," . Said the mayor. "Speak loudly so that all may hear and we will obey your commands." Then Aicha raised her voice until it was borne to the farthest extremity of the market place, and she called out loudly. "First, you must bring me # young calf." Petree es Cone impossible; the last calf was killed Jong ago and now you could not find one for its weight in gold." But Aicha insisted that a calf must be found and brought to her at once, and so all of the people scattered far} and wide to search for a calf and{ they were rewarded by finding a beautiful milk white little animal that had been hidden away in an old cow shed by a miserable old miser. "Now, go out and find me some grain," she commanded. But at this there was an outcry of dismay. "There is none to be had, woman, as you well know," said the mayor indig- nantly. And the people began to look at the old woman and shake their | heads sadly. "She must be crazy!" they said. "T must have grain," she command- ed pgain. "Search from house house and bring me grain." The people then went all over the town from house to house, and aft®r some hours they brought her some to ;the hungry calf. | horrified, | bulk, and at once she began to feed; The mayor W&S the interviewer's and he ealled out: "Stop, that was simple enough. [had been) Lieutenant p SET British Royal Flying Corps his adventures sua Lh appearance he is tall; cut, with a crisp' yoiee manner. = Of all the men who have emerged) from the maelstrom of the world wat, he, perhaps, has had the most dra- matically thrilling experiences, "The beginning?" he said, ROMANOFF FAMILY. and cle: and an alert)" vs 'z echoing "Well, i @ IN TOBLOSK, "CIFY OF DEATH." cian Imperial Exiles Drag Out a! Colorless Existence Amid | Dreary Surroundings. j | Toblosk has been called the "City-of ! l tary nursés of a military hospital -to cwhich gre > sent-"convalescents Siberia and where alt HOUSED PLAINLY sass aser cw) mime amine . wire te | Duchess Bante has taker Ps i) Memphis, the capital of ancient ees ' stenography and typewriting ta help! in Mean - LSagenes her father write his memoirs. But he} sagt capeed dictates nothing and writes nothing. pia ee aa Sometimes he leans out of the only: ond : 4 window, which overlooks the town, - admission te the modern dor a walk. He w the « = ame." The institution was known as uniform of a Colonel of the Prevba- | rie Siteak Aisdeaxy"- sma tuaee.Sona jenakye ao puts on 8 dignited si sie perso of any iterary ditincton But when he thinks himself in Egypt who was not ambitious to be- ne his back loses its stiffness, he | come bed 7 >) alo woman! What 2 terrible waste! For! aving only about two months on regu- shame upon you, feeding that calf j2) assignments. On this particular when our children are crying for! occasion a squadron of eight flying bread and our sick are suffering and corps men was attacked by a large starving in the hospitals. How dare number of German machines-- you stand before us and squander this! twenty-two in all, I believe. I got a precious grain." machine driven by a young Bavarian| ' Sgypti ' Death," its temperature rarely rising | hides his care-lined face in his hands rn ot Pl i een ons above the freezing point. Most of its!and this man, whose hair has turned | cruditien of 0 treatise entitled "The houses are built of wood, the one' quite white, falls into melancholy ; --_ Z " 7 ; . Art of Brevity. It was a masterpiece where the Russian imperial family | brooding. i : isi h ives being one of the few brick of condensation and precision, and he was laboring to compress it stil] more' "that is! in haste, but woman. the mob \ '¢o | city and, followed by a open the gates for her. ' a oO 80. unlo which at once began to enjoy its free- grass. Then the angry people surged about Aicha in a wild mob, crying, "You mad woman! You take our last calf and feed it all of our grain and drive We shall not it out inte the hands of the enemy,! where they may enjoy it for. food." | "Wait," said Aicha, "and you shall \see what you shal] see." | The people watched from the walls | of the town and soon saw the soldiers 'seize the calf and drag it into the fcamp of the enemy. When the king jand his generals saw the calf they /could hardly believe their eyes. "I {thought that we had nearly starved 'them out!" exclaimed the king. "But it cannot be true or they would have killed this beautiful calf and not let it wander outside of their gates to browse." "It Jooks rather lean," said one of e generals, "but your majesty is right. They must have more food than we have or they would have kill- ed and eaten it long ago. It is some time since we have had any fresh meat and our'rations are very low." The troops were all so discoura by this turn of affairs that the king decreed that the calf should be killed and.eaten.at a # ra © their amazement they found inside a great quantity of undi- gested corn. They reported this to e king, and-he summoned all his generals. "If those people have grain enough to spare for their cattle they cannot be starving for food." The generals said: "This is true, your majesty; we are the ones starvy- ing, and we had better raise the siege and retreat at once, lest our soldiers grow angry and rise up in mutiny against us for keeping them upon such short rations." Then they all agreed, and soon the decision of the king and his generais ran through the camp. "We must re- treat," they said. That night the enemy all disappear- ed and in the morning the people in town saw that the enemy had fled. Thanks to the wit and strategy of Aicha, the town was saved. The grateful people carried her on their shoulders ail about town, and they all praised her, and the mayor corh in a measure} Aicha took the corn and moistened it to increase the decreed that she should live in peace and plenty all of her days. HOW | ESCAPED spects of getting back home. f* was an interesting moment for me. | knew the penalties visited upon German =0!- diers who permit captive enemies to escape. But I had determined upon a Aicha went on feeding the 'calf, as, in the last fight, the third machine ad not heard, until all of the | eople began to crowd about her, shouting, "For shame! Stop this mad. blow stunned just enough so that I She is wasting our food!" have no clear impressions of that last "Only give me my way a little Jong- involuntary spinning nose dive of wondering an end to prepared food for one /crowd, she commanded the sentry to; month's time ,. The sentry | refused to do this until the mayor had, improve the condition' of the wound come in person and ordered him to' on my face. As soon as the gates were | were terribly swollen and lacerated. eked, Aicha pushed out the calf,: dom and frisk about and eat the short: night, I worked constantly westward ged | toward the end carrots and cabbages had brovght down. The bullet that hit me struck me in the mouth. I con as 'As a guard. The two upper floors, con- Sisting of fourteen rooms most simply PZ 5 ante 3 2. Hat. When I came to I was & "For two days following my break r liberty J had my prisoner's ration After that there was ed rock had not tended to "The crush And my knees and hands "Segking the cover of little groves land copses by day and travelling by 'toward the Belgian border. | Journey Through Belgium. | "My uniform disintegrated by de- |grees. The initial fall in the rock bal- jlast had sliced it into ribbons, Crawl- ing through culverts and muddy fields, climbing over fences and walking along rough grounds completed the vicissitudes which made it necessary that I seek for other wearing apparel. "My beard had grown, of course, and when more clothing was necessary | I was glad that my general unkempt appearance was entirely congruous) with the Belgian costume I acquired. After that my altered appearance was such that I no longer hesitated to be seen by daylight. "Clad in a coarse, ill-fitting jacket and trousers, affecting a loutish stolid- ity that was made more effective by my unshorn locks, I shuffled with the dejected mien by. many a group of German officers billeted behind the lines in_ Belgium. ; "My food all this time had been what the fields afforded. The mainstay of diet had_been carrots and cabbages-- { | | i , the apartments of "Col. Romanoff." There is neither running water nor} at, neither electricity nor bathroom. | The servants are obliged to draw from | a nearby well the water needed for: household purposes. The rooms are heated by brick ovens which burn | wood. The largest room is not more! than 16 feet by 10 feet. The windows of the house look out' on un unattractive landscape. There; is not even a garden where the Czar might dig and forget his bore- yard enclosed by high brick walls fur- nish the only breathing spots for the imperial prisoners. Life is Monotonous. Nicholas Romanoff and his wife are practically condemned to the lives of recluses. Their sole outing consists in attending mass at the Cathedral of the Annunciation or at a neighboring monastery or going to the public ths, where as a special favor the re- volutionary authorities permit them to the once a week. go out they are escorted by a platoon lof soldiers commanded by four offi- cers of the guard. The fare imposed on the prisoners is of the most frugal nature. Once customed to the delicate refinements of French cooking, they are forced to be content with ordinary Russian dishes: pling, a sort of roll covered with eaviar; bortsch, a thick soup made of. beets apd other vegetables; kalacha, ¢ cheese paste. The people of Tobolsk show neither hostility nor sympathy toward the ex- iled family. Life in the small _town is consistently monotonous. The ex- c- that had not been thought worth har- vesting even in war tim reason of thetr | ' ion. re' 6d) eee Sern ae : fhe 5 days of my h I had few tastes of prepared Rendered desperate by hunger I some- | times tried to pilfer grain from. the barns of.the peasants, "My weight diminished steadily, and frequently I was so ill from the coarse provender that travelling was e trebly difficult. Even in Belgium I ; was under extreme disadvantage in ' procuring food. One would think that l the ready Belgian' sympathy would j have been extended to me as an offi- cer of one of the allied forces, but the ' dejected peasants were terrorstricken on those rare occasions when I trust- led to luck and revealed my identity. | Dread of the Spy. | "The horror of the 'Belgian sheep' 'had gone out beforehand. A 'sheep' in their expressive phraseology is a peculiarly despicable type of spy or informer. These assume various guises--chiefly that of a Belgian in distress. Pretending to inveig against the German oppressors they insinuate themselves into the confi- dence of the Belgians and worm from them uny pitiful secret they may pos- If the information thus secur- led by improved 'kultur' methods is 'grave enough the luckless man finds himself soon facing a firing squad, "This circumstance made it almost as hard to travel through Belgium as t had been to get across Germany un- { | | 8eSs. eee egira food. istence of the former Emperor drags along in drab sadness, Now-and then thorized lhas been a steady decline in the catch} ex- i dom. A: narrow balcony and a court-| up to the present, to secure adequate |; i | o-- -- gpm 'aed te orate -- : Sear or eases tee | when he learned in his country seclu- spany_of soldiers installed there! Romantic Aspect of the Salmon Fish-| sion that there was a place vacant in ithe academy. He promptly presented ery Has Disappeared. 'himself as a candidate at its door. British Columbia salmon is a staple' A crowd of gossiping loungers product the world over. The superior the portico speedily gathered round quality of the sockeye salmon, espe-, the stranger and plied him with a mul- cially, has created a market for them titude of questions. Without a word wherever there is a demand for can- in reply, Akmed, approaching one of ned fish. This world-wide reputation the ushers, placed in his hands a let- has naturally led to an extensive ex- ter addressed to the president of the ploitation of the fishery, and, in spite august institution. It ran: of a measure of restrictive legisla-! '"Akmed humbly solicits the tion and artificial propagation, there place." The usher delivered the letter at during the past twenty years. This is! once; but Akmed and his applicatior especially true of the Fraser River had arrived too late, The place was fishery. The international character already filled. By a system of man- of the stream has made it impossible, agement, which even ancient academ- es sometimes found irresistible, the restrictions and regulations. favorite candidate of a certain rich As is well known, the life history man had been elected, a glib and gar- of the sockeye salmon extends over a rulous pretender. period of four years and, each year,; Much chagrined at the loss of Ak- the fish that were spawned in the up- med, the members of the academy per waters of the Pacific Coast rivers; Were puzzled as to the best mode oi ifour years before, come in from the , telling him of the failure of his appli- 'sea to deposit their spawn in turn and cation, when the president hit upon ! then die, lt is during these seasons , this expedient: He filled a goblet with 'of inward migration that the fisher-| water so full that a single drop more /men gather their harvests. One of: would have caused it to overflow. Then 'the strange and romantic features of, he ordered the candidate to be intro- these migrations is that every fourth | duced. year the run of fish is many times} Akmed entered the hall, where the 'larger than during any of the three| academicians were all assembled. The | years preceding or following it. This! oresident rose and without a word | phenomenon has occurred so regular-' pointed out to him, with a gesture of \ly that it is commorfy spoken of as'regret, the token of his exclusion. ; "the run of the big year." The ex-| The young Egyptian smiled, not in | planation most gemwerally accepted is the least disconcerted. Picking up a i that, at some period, before the advent | rose leaf, he placed it on the surface lof the white man, the fish were over-|of the water so gently that it floated taken by some disease, or other calam- | without causing an overflow. -- ity, which either prevented spawning! This ingenious and intelligible re- | or destroyed much of the spawn dur-| sponse won the members to~a man. 'ig a period of three years. As if to| They handed Akmed their registry of leonfirm this theory, the enormous} names, and he inscribed his own name 'vock slide in the Fraser in 1918--a big, at the end. It remained then for him year--which prevented the salmon get-! to pronounce, according to custom, ar ting up the river to spawn, caus aladdress of thanks. On the margin of tremendous falling off in the catch of, the column where he had written his 1917. Thus, in 1913, 2,401,488 cases}nsme he traced the number 100, _ re- ye her cians vacant ! Count Frederiks and Gen. Voyekov. To them he confides his regrets, his memories and his hopes. Nicholas Romanoff said recently to Gen. Voyekey in an accent of profound resignation: "Has my life not always been that of a prisoner? I do not regret my lost power. All I ask is to be allowed to retire to Crimea, where I could live surrounded by flowers. I feel more than ever, that I would be 'peaceful and happy as a simple citizen of the republic." Czarina Not Reconciled. His resignation in no wise is shared by the former Czarina Alexandra. life was allowed to bring little luggage, fifteen trunks in all. Though at first glance this seems a large amount, it is not excessive, when one takes into consideration that it comprises the complete wardrobe of five women and of the former Czar, who knew that their departure was forever. It is almost impossible to buy suit- able clothes at Tobolsk. The prin- cesses took with them only four dresses. They left all their jewels at the Winter Palace. Rumor says that the ex-Empress found means to send he is ui to receive the visit of pete Deel osenting tha araiemi =" eT evo Government permit-| While a close estimate of the total pack |number to which they had been limit- ted to accompany him in his exile: | 0f 1917 is only 429,600 cases, or only,ed. Then, placing a cipher before the about 18 per cent. of the pack of 1913./ figure 1 (thus, 0100), he wrote under- Such a decline is a calamitous one and , neath: only the most carefully enforced re-| "Their number has _ been strictions over a period of years- can! diminished nor increased." restore, or even save the fishery. e president, delighted at the la- At the Ninth Annual Meeting of the, conic ingenuity of Akmed, substituted ; Commission of Conservation, Mr. J.'the figure 1 for the cipher which pre- | P. Babcock, Assistant Commissioner of ; ceded the number 100 (thus, 1100), Fisheries, British Columbia, said: " 'and appended these words: "The history of the fishing in the! "Their number has been increased Fraser River district in the past four- tenfold." teen years is a record of depletion--a } record of: excessive fishing in 'the lean! years; a record of failure on the part of the authorities of the state of Washington to realize the necessity of conserving a great fishery, notwith- standing the convincing evidence sub- . mitted to them by agents of their own | creation that disaster was impending to one' of their great industries. neither Paying Cas I have not been farming very long, hut it seems to me that a lot of us do not think about some of the deals wa make for time and for cash. Last year I did not thresh wheat until oat were threshed, as I could get the wheat in the barn. Thus I eliminated the ex, J pense of a few men in the threshingy "The Canadian authorities, on the, but was without the use of the mon other hand, have, by their representa- | that the wheat would have brought tions and acts, evinced, in unmistek-: J had threshed it from the field, able manner, their willingness to deal; If J buy three tons of comm | squarely and adequately with condi- fertilizer at an average of, say $20 |tions that foretold depletion, and to: ton, 1 can get a five per cent. dis j join with the state of Washington or! count if I discharge the obligation A - } , the United States Government in leg- jin thirty days, and an additional two, t j islation to prevent it." ; per cent. discount if I pay cash. That | If this can be done there should be; looks good, but I can't raise the .no reason why in the course of time! money, so 1 let it run the regular ; "every year should not be a big year.": three months and then pay. If | On the other hand, a continuayee of; had borrowed that money I could have secretly to Darmstadt before the re-;the present wasteful methods Af fish- had it a year for six per cent. Then FROM THE BUNS LEAP FROM SPEEDING TRAIN, idesperate expedient. A Leap For Liberty. "Even while they stared at me DARING I action had but one merit to insure suc- Journey Over 80 Miles of German Soil, | cess, and that element has been utiliz- ; . 'ed time and again by allied fighting and Through Belgium to [men to the perennial dismay of the Dutch Border. The Teutonic mind reacts to impres- sion just a fraction of a second siow- "T had ample opportunity to study Celt or the countenance of my guard. He was \er, it seems, than that of the an elderly fellow, with the rather va- Anglo-Saxon. cant face and bullet head of the typi-| "A bayonet would have settled the cal German private. He would stare / matter then, but before they could 'stolidly at me for minutes at a time | collect thei? faculties I was hurtling and then glance down at the fleor and j through the gloom of the night. smile. I knew why he was smiling.| «] jit upon my feet, but the spe The poor sae was delighted to-be go- | 6f the train made it inevitable that I ing back into Germany, His elation | should fall forward. T plowed through was not shared by the eight prisoners. | the flinty crushed rock of the track! "There were four guards and two of | ballast, knocking the tape -- bandages them were stationed at the door. After | off my injured mouth and lacerating finally determining upon a plan of ae-|my hands and knees, -tion I coughed incessantly, complain- "At the moment my ing that the air was bad. The train | were such that any feeling of pain was clicked along smoothly over a charac-| swallowed up in the elation of being teristically flawless German roadbed.|free. 1 knew that. I was eighty or The window of the compartment Was | ninety miles into the interior of Ger- opened by lowering, after the fashion| many. It was about an hour before an American inclosed car. dawn. I devoted that hour to running "Quite, deliberately I stepped over | away from the railroad line. I made and opened it. My guards glanced up} but little effort then to determine my sharply, but the action seemed casual | direction. enough to allay 'their suspicions. 1) eagerness of my glanced again at the old chap opposite | themselves would me. He was smiling that naive smile that besyoke his delight atthe pro- ed captors to redeem lead to a speedy leaped through the open window. The} j Huns--the factor of the unexpected. | | ' | impressions | | jan jtedmination that counteracts even this. T knew that the frenzied; ¢, | search, When dawn came I was 'hid- the incident now, I feel ing out' It was the beginning of! paid the price." detected. Everywhere I encountere suspicion that my starvation was sim- ulated and my condition a pose to dis- arm their suspicion. They professed ignorance of what 1 was saying; de- 'clared that they had no food; fled, in terror or brusquely refused my _ re- quest. "Yet I managed a few times to get some bread, and on one or two red-let- ter occasions even secured what passes in Belgium in these days for a regular meal. There remained at last only the final barrier--that electrically charged barrier of barbed wire that marks off neutral Holland from war- ravaged Belgium, I attempted once to use a ladder, but the feat was impos- ' sible, and I almost lost out. entirely, | Indeed, hardly had I huddled down in _the ditch before a German sentry plodded by me. "Afterward came the most nerve- racking and torturesome phase of the affair. I had to dig into the soil with my bare hands. My nails down to the quick, broke: off, afid left the raw ends of the } } and worried for almost two months d a half, however, he acquires a de- "Before dawn I had' gouged out. an opening that permitted me to rough with infinite stealth. saw me standing on neutral ground. I nerves After a fellow has starved and hoped |, Volutionary outbreak a great part of the crown jewels. Nowadays Alexandra devotes her- self to her children, whom she teaches not to resign themselves but to re- member. What makes her most indig- nant is that she is allowed neither to write nor receive letter ".at are not opened by the reyolutioiary officers. a constantly repeats to her daugh- ers: "Never forget what we are forced to bear "at the present moment." Her only confidante is Countess Na- rischkine, -who. was her lady in walt- ing and who.was allowed to follow her to Tobolsk. If the Grand Duchesses are allowed to come and:go freely in the town without the vexation of any surveil- lance the same thing is not true of the ex-Czarevitch. Prince Alexis, who is familiarly known as Alioscha, can go Out.and play -in the public parks whenever he likes, but he is watched by guards specially attached to his _cartied | the arms after the mysteri- ticcident on the imperial sactit. Alexis is well now, but his right leg a bit stiff. -The Four Grand Duchesses. The daughters of the former Czar lead a sim: : Grand Duchess was free at last! back over t I have ple life. ie the mést serious of them all, ing, especially by American }men, can only result in the com; 'depletion of this valuable fisher) A Rainy Day at the Zoo. Have you evey visited a Zoo rainy day, and noticed the effect si weather has on certain animals? the Like the domestic cat. animals of that tribe when it is raining; pards, jaguars, and pumas lessly about their den grumbling and ectually if their nerves were on ¢) soothe them their keepers my an extra dose of milk, a form of medi cine they are never loath to swallow. s also hate rain--it gives! tt of the blues. The monkey-) house on a drizzling day is a doleful} picture; silently they sit on their | perches, staring through the windows | at the rain, with their hands clasped lions I could have paid the bil] with seven per cent. discount off. The discount for cash wouldvhave been $4.20, while the entire interest would have been Semecimes we sell our crops at hars s than they will bring in a just to get cash, Banka out gladly in just such a 'ave times, of course, when a lil ia stretched so far that about borrowing. any he can straighten things . but usually this is not the s cred suying machinery goes on the sama system. We usually think it is. cheap- er to buy on time than to pay cash,' because we haven't the cash. If .- can get three per cént. or five per cent. or six per cent. or whatever ig may be by phying cash, then surely, we are giving someone a nice little herself among the volun- rake-off by waiting until we get some money from a sale of a crop and yfay4 ing usually a good many dollars more, | ése instances are enough to show, 'what we are really doing. It is like; }a lot of other things we farmers do without thinking. Certainly I am doing some of them too. I can't see what I do that is in the beaten track, but I do see some things tha have done and that others are doy ing.--E.R. over their heads--veritable graven im- ages of gloom. Now the dog tribe, especially the | wolf, glories in damp weather, and is at peace with all the world. Though the wolf is a treacherous animal, his keeper need not worry on a wet day, the beast is on his best behavior, even inclined to be playful. > 1 "Johnny," said the teacher, "you must stay in after school and learn the names of all the Mexican presid- ents and all the German chancellors since 1914." ; a eer ao | "In God's name, what are eggs and tea Ic Sompared with final victory?