below and the soldiers, chased by our shots, made off as fast as they
could down into the valley out of which we had come.

Afterward the Tartar told me the Soyot had proposed to guide them around
behind the Reds to fall upon their rear with the bombs. When I had bound
up the wounded shoulder of the officer and we had taken the pack off the
killed animal, we continued our journey. Our position was complicated.
We had no doubt that the Red detachment came up from Mongolia.
Therefore, were there Red troops in Mongolia? What was their strength?
Where might we meet them? Consequently, Mongolia was no more the
Promised Land? Very sad thoughts took possession of us.

But Nature pleased us. The wind gradually fell. The storm ceased. The
sun more and more frequently broke through the scudding clouds. We were
traveling upon a high, snow-covered plateau, where in one place the wind
blew it clean and in another piled it high with drifts which caught our
horses and held them so that they could hardly extricate themselves at
times. We had to dismount and wade through the white piles up to our
waists and often a man or horse was down and had to be helped to his
feet. At last the descent began and at sunset we stopped in the small
larch grove, spent the night at the fire among the trees and drank the
tea boiled in the water carried from the open mountain brook. In various
places we came across the tracks of our recent antagonists.

Everything, even Nature herself and the angry demons of Darkhat Ola, had
helped us: but we were not gay, because again before us lay the dread
uncertainty that threatened us with new and possibly destructive
dangers.