Each oulatchen had three horses in all, so that he could swing from one that had given out and release him to graze until his return to pick him up and lead or ride him back home.  At every third ourton, without leaving his saddle, he received a cup of hot green tea with salt and continued his race southward.  After seventeen or eighteen hours of such riding he stopped at the ourton for the night or what was left of it, devoured a leg of boiled mutton and slept.  Thus he ate once a day and five times a day had tea; and so he traveled for nine days!

With this servant we moved out one cold winter morning in the direction of Kobdo, just over three hundred miles, because from there we had received the disquieting rumours that the Red troops had entered Ulankom and that the Chinese authorities had handed over to them all the Europeans in the town.  We crossed the River Dzaphin on the ice.  It is a terrible stream.  Its bed is full of quicksands, which in summer suck in numbers of camels, horses and men.  We entered a long, winding valley among the mountains covered with deep snow and here and there with groves of the black wood of the larch.  About halfway to Kobdo we came across the yurta of a shepherd on the shore of the small Lake of Baga Nor, where evening and a strong wind whirling gusts of snow in our faces easily persuaded us to stop.  By the yurta stood a splendid bay horse with a saddle richly ornamerited with silver and coral.  As we turned in from the road, two Mongols left the yurta very hastily; one of them jumped into the saddle and quickly disappeared in the plain behind the snowy hillocks.  We clearly made out the flashing folds of his yellow robe under the great outer coat and saw his large knife sheathed in a green leather scabbard and handled with horn and ivory.  The other man was the host of the yurta, the shepherd of a local prince, Novontziran.  He gave signs of great pleasure at seeing us and receiving us in his yurta.

“Who was the rider on the bay horse?” we asked.

He dropped his eyes and was silent.

“Tell us,” we insisted.  “If you do not wish to speak his name, it means that you are dealing with a bad character.”

“No!  No!” he remonstrated, flourishing his hands.  “He is a good, great man; but the law does not permit me to speak his name.”

We at once understood that the man was either the chief of the shepherd or some high Lama.  Consequently we did not further insist and began making our sleeping arrangements.  Our host set three legs of mutton to boil for us, skillfully cutting out the bones with his heavy knife.  We chatted and learned that no one had seen Red troops around this region but in Kobdo and in Ulankom the Chinese soldiers were oppressing the population, and were beating to death with the bamboo Mongol men who were defending their women against the ravages of these Chinese troops.  Some of the Mongols had retreated to the mountains to join detachments under the command of Kaigordoff, an Altai Tartar officer who was supplying them with weapons.