“’Earth and Gods of Mongolia, behold the offspring of the man who has glorified the name of the Mongols from one end of the world to the other!  Allow not this very flesh of Jenghiz Khan to perish!’

“At this moment she noticed a white mouse sitting on a rock nearby.  It jumped to her knees and said: 

“’I am sent to help you.  Go on calmly and do not fear.  The pursuers of you and your son, to whom is destined a life of glory, have come to the last bourne of their lives.’

“Ta Sin Lo did not see how one small mouse could hold in check three hundred men.  The mouse jumped back to the ground and again spoke: 

“’I am the demon of Tarbagatai, Jagasstai.  I am mighty and beloved of the Gods but, because you doubted the powers of the miracle-speaking mouse, from this day the Jagasstai will be dangerous for the good and bad alike.’

“The Khan’s widow and son were saved but Jagasstai has ever remained merciless.  During the journey over this pass one must always be on one’s guard.  The demon of the mountain is ever ready to lead the traveler to destruction.”

All the tops of the ridges of the Tarbagatai are thickly dotted with the obo of rocks and branches.  In one place there was even erected a tower of stones as an altar to propitiate the Gods for the doubts of Ta Sin Lo.  Evidently the demon expected us.  When we began our ascent of the main ridge, he blew into our faces with a sharp, cold wind, whistled and roared and afterwards began casting over us whole blocks of snow torn off the drifts above.  We could not distinguish anything around us, scarcely seeing the camel immediately in front.  Suddenly I felt a shock and looked about me.  Nothing unusual was visible.  I was seated comfortably between two leather saddle bags filled with meat and bread but . . .  I could not see the head of my camel.  He had disappeared.  It seemed that he had slipped and fallen to the bottom of a shallow ravine, while the bags which were slung across his back without straps had caught on a rock and stopped with myself there in the snow.  This time the demon of Jagasstai only played a joke but one that did not satisfy him.  He began to show more and more anger.  With furious gusts of wind he almost dragged us and our bags from the camels and nearly knocked over our humped steeds, blinded us with frozen snow and prevented us from breathing.  Through long hours we dragged slowly on in the deep snow, often falling over the edge of the rocks.  At last we entered a small valley where the wind whistled and roared with a thousand voices.  It had grown dark.  The Mongol wandered around searching for the trail and finally came back to us, flourishing his arms and saying: 

“We have lost the road.  We must spend the night here.  It is very bad because we shall have no wood for our stove and the cold will grow worse.”

With great difficulties and with frozen hands we managed to set up our tent in the wind, placing in it the now useless stove.  We covered the tent with snow, dug deep, long ditches in the drifts and forced our camels to lie down in them by shouting the “Dzuk!  Dzuk!” command to kneel.  Then we brought our packs into the tent.