When we were safe on the farther bank and well into the woods, our Mongol guide recounted to us how the river at times opens in this mysterious way and leaves great areas of clear water.  All the men and animals on the river at such times must perish.  The furious current of cold water will always carry them down under the ice.  At other times a crack has been known to pass right under a horse and, where he fell in with his front feet in the attempt to get back to the other side, the crack has closed up and ground his legs or feet right off.

The valley of Kosogol is the crater of an extinct volcano.  Its outlines may be followed from the high west shore of the lake.  However, the Plutonic force still acts and, asserting the glory of the Devil, forces the Mongols to build obo and offer sacrifices at his shrines.  We spent all the night and all the next day hurrying away eastward to avoid a meeting with the Reds and seeking good pasturage for our horses.  At about nine o’clock in the evening a fire shone out of the distance.  My friend and I made toward it with the feeling that it was surely a Mongol yurta beside which we could camp in safety.  We traveled over a mile before making out distinctly the lines of a group of yurtas.  But nobody came out to meet us and, what astonished us more, we were not surrounded by the angry black Mongolian dogs with fiery eyes.  Still, from the distance we had seen the fire and so there must be someone there.  We dismounted from our horses and approached on foot.  From out of the yurta rushed two Russian soldiers, one of whom shot at me with his pistol but missed me and wounded my horse in the back through the saddle.  I brought him to earth with my Mauser and the other was killed by the butt end of my friend’s rifle.  We examined the bodies and found in their pockets the papers of soldiers of the Second Squadron of the Communist Interior Defence.  Here we spent the night.  The owners of the yurtas had evidently run away, for the Red soldiers had collected and packed in sacks the property of the Mongols.  Probably they were just planning to leave, as they were fully dressed.  We acquired two horses, which we found in the bushes, two rifles and two automatic pistols with cartridges.  In the saddle bags we also found tea, tobacco, matches and cartridges—­all of these valuable supplies to help us keep further hold on our lives.

Two days later we were approaching the shore of the River Uri when we met two Russian riders, who were the Cossacks of a certain Ataman Sutunin, acting against the Bolsheviki in the valley of the River Selenga.  They were riding to carry a message from Sutunin to Kaigorodoff, chief of the Anti-Bolsheviki in the Altai region.  They informed us that along the whole Russian-Mongolian border the Bolshevik troops were scattered; also that Communist agitators had penetrated to Kiakhta, Ulankom and Kobdo and had persuaded the Chinese authorities to surrender to the Soviet authorities