on the whole circle round us and the bullets came ever in increasing numbers.  We had fallen into a trap and had no hope but to perish.  We realized this clearly.  I tried anew to begin the parley; but when I stood up with my white flag, the answer was only a thicker rain of bullets and unfortunately one of these, ricocheting off a rock, struck me in the left leg and lodged there.  At the same moment another one of our company was killed.  We had no other choice and were forced to begin fighting.  The struggle continued for about two hours.  Besides myself three others received slight wounds.  We resisted as long as we could.  The hunghutze approached and our situation became desperate.

“There’s no choice,” said one of my associates, a very expert Colonel.  “We must mount and ride for it . . . anywhere.”

“Anywhere. . . .”  It was a terrible word!  We consulted for but an instant.  It was apparent that with this band of cut-throats behind us the farther we went into Tibet, the less chance we had of saving our lives.

We decided to return to Mongolia.  But how?  That we did not know.  And thus we began our retreat.  Firing all the time, we trotted our horses as fast as we could toward the north.  One after another three of my companions fell.  There lay my Tartar with a bullet through his neck.  After him two young and fine stalwart officers were carried from their saddles with cries of death, while their scared horses broke out across the plain in wild fear, perfect pictures of our distraught selves.  This emboldened the Tibetans, who became more and more audacious.  A bullet struck the buckle on the ankle strap of my right foot and carried it, with a piece of leather and cloth, into my leg just above the ankle.  My old and much tried friend, the agronome, cried out as he grasped his shoulder and then I saw him wiping and bandaging as best as he could his bleeding forehead.  A second afterward our Kalmuck was hit twice right through the palm of the same hand, so that it was entirely shattered.  Just at this moment fifteen of the hunghutze rushed against us in a charge.

“Shoot at them with volley fire!” commanded our Colonel.

Six robber bodies lay on the turf, while two others of the gang were unhorsed and ran scampering as fast as they could after their retreating fellows.  Several minutes later the fire of our antagonists ceased and they raised a white flag.  Two riders came forward toward us.  In the parley it developed that their chief had been wounded through the chest and they came to ask us to “render first aid.”  At once I saw a ray of hope.  I took my box of medicines and my groaning, cursing, wounded Kalmuck to interpret for me.

“Give that devil some cyanide of potassium,” urged my companions.

But I devised another scheme.