Temudjin was now, says Mailla, one of the most powerful princes of these parts, and he determined to subjugate the Kieliei, the inhabitants of the Argun, but he was defeated.  During the action, having been hit by twelve arrows, he fell from his horse unconscious, when Bogordshi and Burgul, at some risk, took him out of the struggle.  While the former melted the snow with some hot stones and bathed him with it, so as to free his throat from the blood, the latter, during the long winter night, covered him with his own cloak from the falling snow.  He would, nevertheless, have fared badly if his mother had not collected a band of his father’s troops and come to his assistance together with Tului, the Kerait chief, who remembered the favors he had received from Temudjin’s father.  Mailla says that returning home with a few followers, he was attacked by a band of robbers.  He was accompanied by a famous crossbowman, named Soo, to whom he had given the name of Merghen.  While the robbers were within earshot, Merghen shouted:  “There are two wild ducks, a male and a female; which shall I bring down?”

“The male,” said Temudjin.

He had scarcely said so when down it came.  This was too much for the robbers, who dared not measure themselves against such marksmanship.

The Merkits had recently made a raid upon his territory, and carried off his favorite wife, Burte Judjin.  It was after her return from her captivity that she gave birth to her elder son, Juji, about whose legitimacy there seems to have been some doubt in his father’s mind.  It was to revenge this that he now (1197) marched against them, and defeated them near the river Mundsheh (a river “Mandzin” is still to be found in the canton Karas Muren).  He abandoned all the booty to Wang Khan.  The latter, through the influence of Temudjin, once more regained his throne, and the following year (1198) he headed an expedition on his own account against the Merkits, and beat them at a place named Buker Gehesh, but he did not reciprocate the generosity of his ally.

In 1199 the two friends made a joint expedition against the Naimans.  This tribe was now divided between two brothers who had quarrelled about their father’s concubine.  One of them, named Buyuruk, had retired with a body of the people to the Kiziltash mountains.  The other, called Baibuka—­but generally referred to by his Chinese title of Taiwang, or Tayang—­remained in his own proper country.  It was the latter who was now attacked by the two allies, and forced to escape to the country of Kem Kemdjut—­i.e., toward the sources of the Yenissei.  Chamuka, the chief of the Jadjerats, well named Satchan, or “the Crafty,” still retained his hatred for Temudjin.  He now whispered in the ear of Wang Khan that his ally was only a fair-weather friend.  Like the wild goose, he flew away in winter, while he himself, like the snowbird, was constant under all circumstances.  These and other suggestions