it continued throughout the
summer; I made the cures, and the priest got the fees.

Although the Mongols all admitted the efficacy of my foreign
medicines, nevertheless they could not bring themselves to dispense
with the lama and his prayers. Superstition was too strong and fear
that the priest would send an army of evil spirits flocking to their
_yurts_ if they offended him brought the money, albeit reluctantly,
from their pockets. Although the lama never proposed a partnership
arrangement, as I thought he might have done, he spent much time
about our camp and often brought us bowls of curded milk and cheese.
He was a wandering priest and not a permanent resident of the
valley, but he evidently decided not to wander any farther until we,
too, should leave, for he was with us until the very end.

A short time after we had made our camp near the Terelche River a
messenger arrived from Urga with a huge package of mail. In it was a
copy of _Harper's Magazine_ containing an account of a flying visit
which I had made to Urga in September, 1918. [Footnote: _Harper's
Magazine_, June, 1919, pp. 1-16.] There were half a dozen Mongols
near our tent, among whom was Madame Tserin Dorchy. I explained the
pictures to the hunter's wife in my best Chinese while Yvette "stood
by" with her camera and watched results. Although the woman had
visited Urga several times she had never seen a photograph or a
magazine and for ten minutes there was no reaction. Then she
recognized a Mongol headdress similar to her own. With a gasp of
astonishment she pointed it out to the others and burst into a
perfect torrent of guttural expletives. A picture of the great
temple at Urga, where she once had gone to worship, brought forth
another volume of Mongolian adjectives and her friends literally
fought for places in the front row.

News travels quickly in Mongolia and during the next week men and
women rode in from _yurts_ forty or fifty miles away to see that
magazine. I will venture to say that no American publication ever
received more appreciation or had a more picturesque audience than
did that copy of _Harper's_.

The absent Tserin Dorchy returned one day when I was riding down the
valley with his wife. We saw two strange figures on horseback
emerging from the forest, each with a Russian rifle on his back.
Their saddles were strung about with half-dried skins--four roebuck,
a musk deer, a moose, and a pair of elk antlers in the "velvet."

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