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