n, at the end of the procession--Dr.
Shedd, planning out how he could best get his people safely away from
the Turks who--he knew--would soon come pursuing them down the plain
to the mountains. Night fell and they were in a long line of wagons
close to a narrow bridge built by the Russians across the Baranduz
river. They had come some eighteen miles from Urumia.

So they lay down in the wagons to try to sleep. But they could not and
at two o'clock in the night they moved on, crossed the river and drove
on for hour after hour toward the mountains that rose in a wall before
them.

The poor horses were not strong so the wagon had to be lightened.
Assyrian boys took loads on their heads and trudged up the rocky
mountain road while the wagon jolted and groaned as it bumped its way
along. The trail of the mountain pass was littered with samovars (tea
urns), copper kettles, carpets, bedding; and here and there the body
of someone who had died on the way. At the very top of the pass lay a
baby thrown aside there and just drawing its last breath.

So for two days they jolted on hardly getting an hour's sleep. At last
at midday on the third day they left Hadarabad at the south end of
Lake Urumia. Two hours later the sound of booming guns was heard. A
horseman galloped up.

"The Turks are in Hadarabad," he said. "They are attacking the rear of
the procession."

"It seemed," said Mrs. Shedd, "as if at any moment we should hear the
screams of those behind, as the enemy fell upon them."

The wagons hurried on to the next town called Memetyar and there Dr.
Shedd waited, lightening his own wagons by throwing away everything
that they could spare--oil, potatoes, charcoal, every box except his
Bible and a small volume of Browning's Poems.

Then they started again, along a road that was littered with the
discarded goods of the people. Then they saw on the road-side a little
baby girl that had been left by her parents. She was not a year old
and sat there all alone in a desolate spot. Left to die. Dr. Shedd
looked at his wife and she at him.

He pulled up the horse and jumped down, picked up the baby and put her
in the wagon. They went along till they came to a large village. Here
they found a Kurdish mother.

"Take care of this little girl till we come back," said Dr. Shedd,
"and here is some money for looking after her. We will give you more
when we come back if she is well looked after."

III

Suddenly cannon were fired