y.

As we walked back to camp in the late afternoon, we often saw a
kangaroo rat (_Alactaga mongolica_?) jumping across the plain, and
when we had driven it into a hole, we could be sure to catch it in a
trap the following morning. They are gentle little creatures, with
huge, round eyes, long, delicate ears, and tails tufted at the end
like the feathers on an arrow's shaft. The name expresses exactly
what they are like--diminutive kangaroos--but, of course, they are
rodents and not marsupials. During the glacial period of the early
Pleistocene, about one hundred thousand years ago, we know from
fossil remains that there were great invasions into Europe of most
of these types of tiny mammals, which we were catching during this
delightful summer on the Mongolian plains.

After two months we regretfully turned back toward Urga. Our summer
was to be divided between the plains on the south and the forests to
the north of the sacred city, and the first half of the work had
been completed. The results had been very satisfactory, and our
boxes contained five hundred specimens; but our hearts were sad. The
wide sweep of the limitless, grassy sea, the glorious morning rides,
and the magic of the starlit nights had filled our blood. Even the
lure of the unknown forests could not make us glad to go, for the
plains had claimed us as their own.

CHAPTER X

AN ADVENTURE IN THE LAMA CITY

Late on a July afternoon my wife and I stood disconsolately in the
middle of the road on the outskirts of Urga. We had halted because
the road had ended abruptly in a muddy river. Moreover, the river
was where it had no right to be, for we had traveled that road
before and had found only a tiny trickle across its dusty surface.
We were disconsolate because we wished to camp that night in Urga,
and there were abundant signs that it could not be done.

At least the Mongols thought so, and we had learned that what a
Mongol does not do had best "give us pause." They had accepted the
river with Oriental philosophy and had made their camps accordingly.
Already a score of tents dotted the hillside, and _argul_ fires were
smoking in the doorways. Hundreds of carts were drawn up in an
orderly array while a regiment of oxen wandered about the hillside
or sleepily chewed their cuds beside the loads. In a few hours or
days or weeks the river would disappear, and then they would go on
to Urga. Meanwhile, why worry?

Two adventurous spirits, with a hu