A broken line of terrified schoolboys, laden with rifles and homemade grenades, crept through the streets of ancient Tabriz as dawn broke over the starving city. Weakened by hunger after months of siege, many of them sick, these young men nevertheless understood that they were the vanguard of Iran's struggle for democracy. Above all they were inspired by the man they followed. He was not, like other guerrilla leaders, a defiant officer, a bandit turned patriot, or the product of a long line of Persian fighters. Instead he was as unlikely a revolutionary as could possibly have emerged in this proud and ancient land: a twenty- four-year-old schoolteacher from Nebraska named Howard Baskerville.Neither the inspiring figure of their leader nor the invigorating spring breeze blowing down from the nearby Sahand Mountains, how- ever, was enough to persuade most of these boys and young men that this day, April 20, 1909, was their day to die. A hundred followed Basker- ville as he set out at first light. By the time their column approached the city wall an hour later, fewer than a dozen remained. Nonetheless Basker- ville pressed on.