te: Food is obtained at high prices.]

"I arrived here alone and with only a few rubles," said Captain H----.
"But I heard that some day my fellows would come through on their way to
France. So I began organizing our resources. Many of our men have made
much money as prisoners in Russia. They were generous. Men began to
flock in and we took off their Austrian uniforms and put them into
Russian uniforms--the uniform of our expeditionary force. Fighting men
were listed and trained. Artisans we merely listed, and there are forty
thousand names classified by occupation and residence in those files. In
three weeks we have taken in 610 Czech prisoners and sent them out in
the uniform of the expeditionary force to France. Every shoe and belt
and uniform is utilized and nothing is wasted except the hated Austrian
uniform, which is in most cases worn to shreds anyway. We have
established friendly relations with the people. Theoretically we are not
supposed to be doing this. Theoretically, we are not securing food. But
actually we are getting enough and to spare. Ten trains a week get
several days' supplies here. Only in disorganized Russia could such
things be. But we have to pay the secret agents of the local Soviet
sixty-five rubles for meat. Its market price is thirty-five."

[Sidenote: Professor Masaryk in America is the leader.]

In my note-book, I cannot find the names of a dozen leaders of the Czech
expedition. In a sense, there were no leaders. The outstanding fact in
the Czech army is the democracy of it. The leaders are men who have been
trained, but they owe their position to popular choice. Yet there is no
foolish idea that military decisions can be made by a committee of
soldiers. The Czech sacrifices personal ambition to his cause and that
is why his cause is worth fighting for. The Russian cause, a thing of
chaos, is losing force every day. I might almost say that the Czechs, in
Siberia, were led by Professor Masaryk, in America, through the
influence of his words in the daily paper. As prominent a figure among
the Czechs as any one man in the expedition is Kenneth Miller of New
York, director of the Y.M.C.A., and held on a high pedestal in the
affection of 10,000 men. He has had much to do with the moving of the
Czech trains in all their complicated travel arrangements.

[Sidenote: How the Czechs came to control Siberia.]

The democracy of the Czech army and the ease with which it made friends
continually sur