Stupid, very stupid!  What was the use of fighting one’s way through Red detachments, of being frozen and hungry, of almost perishing in Tibet only to die from a bullet of one of Bezrodnoff’s Mongols?  For such a pleasure it was not worth while to travel so long and so far!  In every Siberian “Cheka” I could have had this end so joyfully accorded me.

When we arrived at Zain Shabi, my luggage was examined and Bezrodnoff began to question me in minutest detail about the events in Uliassutai.  We talked about three hours, during which I tried to defend all the officers of Uliassutai, maintaining that one must not trust only the reports of Domojiroff.  When our conversation was finished, the Captain stood up and offered his apologies for detaining me in my journey.  Afterwards he presented me a fine Mauser with silver mountings on the handle and said: 

“Your pride greatly pleased me.  I beg you to receive this weapon as a memento of me.”

The following morning I set out anew from Zain Shabi, having in my pocket the laissez-passer of Bezrodnoff for his outposts.

CHAPTER XXXI

Traveling by “Urga”

Once more we traveled along the now known places, the mountain from which I espied the detachment of Bezrodnoff, the stream into which I had thrown my weapon, and soon all this lay behind us.  At the first ourton we were disappointed because we did not find horses there.  In the yurtas were only the host with two of his sons.  I showed him my document and he exclaimed: 

“Noyon has the right of ‘urga.’  Horses will be brought very soon.”

He jumped into his saddle, took two of my Mongols with him, providing them and himself with long thin poles, four or five metres in length, and fitted at the end with a loop of rope, and galloped away.  My cart moved behind them.  We left the road, crossed the plain for an hour and came upon a big herd of horses grazing there.  The Mongol began to catch a quota of them for us with his pole and noose or urga, when out of the mountains nearby came galloping the owners of the herds.  When the old Mongol showed my papers to them, they submissively acquiesced and substituted four of their men for those who had come with me thus far.  In this manner the Mongols travel, not along the ourton or station road but directly from one herd to another, where the fresh horses are caught and saddled and the new owners substituted for those of the last herd.  All the Mongols so effected by the right of urga try to finish their task as rapidly as possible and gallop like mad for the nearest herd in your general direction of travel to turn over their task to their neighbor.  Any traveler having this right of urga can catch horses himself and, if there are no owners, can force the former ones to carry on and leave the animals in the next herd he requisitions.  But this happens very rarely because the Mongol never likes to seek out his animals in another’s herd, as it always gives so many chances for controversy.