Lost in Siberia

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Our first scene discloses a room in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, D.C. Count Makaroff, representing the Czar of Russia, arrives, and presents the American scientists with passports and credentials entitling them to make extensive geological researches in the Czar's icebound regions of Siberia. The scene then shifts to St. Petersburg; a socialistic meeting is in progress. Count Makaroff, the most bitterly hated aristocrat in the Russian Empire, has been proscribed, and we see the fatal number drawn by Marie Ruzieka, a young girl student of the University. Her sweetheart is also present at the meeting, and when he finds that Marie has been unfortunate enough to be chosen as the executioner of Makaroff, he determines to share her lot. Then we see the two plotting together in the Makaroff home, where they are now employed as servants. Makaroff is entertaining a party of friends, telling them of his recent visit to America. The company decide to visit the play. Maurice and Marie are detailed to accompany their master and mistress. The droskeys arrive; the hour the students have waited for has arrived. They go in separate vehicles. The cortege reaches the giant gateway leading to the Czar's Winter Palace. Maurice swings himself to the driver's seat, places a revolver to the astonished man's head: "Get down, run; upon your silence depends your life." The horse comes to a standstill. "Quick, Marie, throw as the carriage goes under the arch. I'll wait for you at the last turn." Simeon Novotskv, the bitterest nihilist in Russia, is also in the plot and at hand. As the Makaroff carriage appears he is watching the half-fainting Marie. Will her nerve fail her? I thought so. With a yell of rage he leaps to the girl's side, wrenches a dark brown object from her hand and hurls it with all his might at the disappearing vehicle that is just passing through the arch. There is a startling report, and Marie staggers to her feet and dashes for the cab where Maurice stands waiting. Too late; the palace guards are upon them. All three, Maurice, Marie and Novotsky, are arrested and dragged before the dying Count Makaroff. He had seen the girl, as his drosky drove past, stand with uplifted arm, but had not seen what followed, and with his dying breath he accuses the innocent girl. Two weeks later, exiled to Siberia, bound two by two, we see a crowd of half-frozen human slaves staggering under heavy chains. Across the great white steppes of Siberia, bound for the soul-destroying sulfur mines of Russia's farthest north possessions; our student friends are of the number. Uhlan Dahlgren, the burly Czarian of guards in command of the party, has cast lecherous eyes on poor Marie, and only waits a favorable opportunity to press his attentions. Poor Maurice, footsore and ill, is carefully nursed by Marie. At last he is unable to go any farther. Marie begs Uhlan to let the sick boy ride on the sledge. "So he's your sweetheart, eh? Well, give us a kiss and we will see what can be done for him." With this he seizes the helpless girl in his arms. Poor Maurice, aroused to a frenzy at Marie's persecution, grabs a whip from the guard's hand and strikes the brute over the head, thus making a bitter enemy of the man whom the law had placed guard over him. Four weeks later the interior of the sulfur mines finds our trio of students doggedly working, praying hourly for death to escape the hated persecutions of Uhlan. At last, driven to despair by his actions, they make a dash for liberty. Marie and Maurice reach the surface and escape in a drosky that Uhlan has just left. Poor Novotsky is shot by a guard. Then we see our exiles riding for their lives across the frozen plains, pursued by a pack of wolves. In their path the party of American scientists, to whom we were introduced in the opening scene, are busy at work over some interesting geological deposits; the crack of a rifle and the howl of the pursuing wolves put them into excited action, and they rescue Maurice and Marie just as all hope had fled.