d took posts in the enclosure to wait for our
common enemy. An hour of trying impatience passed, when one of the
workmen came running in from the wood and whispered:

"They are crossing our swamp. . . . The fight is on."

In fact, like an answer to his words, came through the woods the sound
of a single rifle-shot, followed closely by the increasing rat-tat-tat
of the mingled guns. Nearer to the house the sounds gradually came. Soon
we heard the beating of the horses' hoofs and the brutish cries of the
soldiers. In a moment three of them burst into the house, from off
the road where they were being raked now by the Tartars from both
directions, cursing violently. One of them shot at our host. He stumbled
along and fell on his knee, as his hand reached out toward the rifle
under his pillows.

"Who are YOU?" brutally blurted out one of the soldiers, turning to us
and raising his rifle. We answered with Mausers and successfully, for
only one soldier in the rear by the door escaped, and that merely to
fall into the hands of a workman in the courtyard who strangled him.
The fight had begun. The soldiers called on their comrades for help.
The Reds were strung along in the ditch at the side of the road, three
hundred paces from the house, returning the fire of the surrounding
Tartars. Several soldiers ran to the house to help their comrades but
this time we heard the regular volley of the workmen of our host. They
fired as though in a manoeuvre calmly and accurately. Five Red soldiers
lay on the road, while the rest now kept to their ditch. Before long we
discovered that they began crouching and crawling out toward the end of
the ditch nearest the wood where they had left their horses. The sounds
of shots became more and more distant and soon we saw fifty or sixty
Tartars pursuing the Reds across the meadow.

Two days we rested here on the Seybi. The workmen of our host, eight in
number, turned out to be officers hiding from the Bolsheviks. They asked
permission to go on with us, to which we agreed.

When my friend and I continued our trip we had a guard of eight armed
officers and three horses with packs. We crossed a beautiful valley
between the Rivers Seybi and Ut. Everywhere we saw splendid grazing
lands with numerous herds upon them, but in two or three houses along
the road we did not find anyone living. All had hidden away in fear
after hearing the sounds of the fight with the Reds. The following day
we went up ove