ds and to secure
a little rest; though unfortunately I had nothing but a jackknife
with which to dig the bullet out of my left calf and the shoemaker's
accessories from my right ankle. Inquiring from the brigands about the
caravan roads, we soon made our way out to one of the main routes and
had the good fortune to meet there the caravan of the young Mongol
Prince Pounzig, who was on a holy mission carrying a message from
the Living Buddha in Urga to the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. He helped us to
purchase horses, camels and food.

With all our arms and supplies spent in barter during the journey for
the purchase of transport and food, we returned stripped and broken to
the Narabanchi Monastery, where we were welcomed by the Hutuktu.

"I knew you would come back," said he. "The divinations revealed it all
to me."

With six of our little band left behind us in Tibet to pay the eternal
toll of our dash for the south we returned but twelve to the Monastery
and waited there two weeks to re-adjust ourselves and learn how events
would again set us afloat on this turbulent sea to steer for any port
that Destiny might indicate. The officers enlisted in the detachment
which was then being formed in Mongolia to fight against the destroyers
of their native land, the Bolsheviki. My original companion and I
prepared to continue our journey over Mongolian plains with whatever
further adventures and dangers might come in the struggle to escape to a
place of safety.

And now, with the scenes of that trying march so vividly recalled, I
would dedicate these chapters to my gigantic, old and ruggedly tried
friend, the agronome, to my Russian fellow-travelers, and especially, to
the sacred memory of those of our companions whose bodies lie cradled
in the sleep among the mountains of Tibet--Colonel Ostrovsky, Captains
Zuboff and Turoff, Lieutenant Pisarjevsky, Cossack Vernigora and
Tartar Mahomed Spirin. Also here I express my deep thanks for help and
friendship to the Prince of Soldjak, Hereditary Noyon Ta Lama and to
the Kampo Gelong of Narabanchi Monastery, the honorable Jelyb Djamsrap
Hutuktu.

Part II

THE LAND OF DEMONS

CHAPTER XVII

MYSTERIOUS MONGOLIA

In the heart of Asia lies the enormous, mysterious and rich country of
Mongolia. From somewhere on the snowy slopes of the Tian Shan and from
the hot sands of Western Zungaria to the timbered ridges of the Sayan
and to the Great Wall of China it stretches over a huge p