once more we found ourselves in the whirl of events. during ourfortnight away a great deal had happened here. the chinesecommissioner wang tsao-tsun had sent eleven envoys to urga but nonehad returned. the situation in mongolia remained far from clear.

the russian detachment had been increased by the arrival of newcolonists and secretly continued its illegal existence, althoughthe chinese knew about it through their omnipresent system ofspies. in the town no russian or foreign citizens left theirhouses and all remained armed and ready to act. at night armedsentinels stood guard in all their court-yards. it was the chinesewho induced such precautions. by order of their commissioner allthe chinese merchants with stocks of rifles armed their staffs andhanded over any surplus guns to the officials, who with theseformed and equipped a force of two hundred coolies into a specialgarrison of gamins. then they took possession of the mongolianarsenal and distributed these additional guns among the chinesevegetable farmers in the nagan hushun, where there was always afloating population of the lowest grade of transient chineselaborers. this trash of china now felt themselves strong, gatheredtogether in excited discussions and evidently were preparing forsome outburst of aggression. at night the coolies transported manyboxes of cartridges from the chinese shops to the nagan hushun andthe behaviour of the chinese mob became unbearably audacious.

these coolies and gamins impertinently stopped and searched peopleright on the streets and sought to provoke fights that would allowthem to take anything they wanted. through secret news we receivedfrom certain chinese quarters we learned that the chinese werepreparing a pogrom for all the russians and mongols in uliassutai.

we fully realized that it was only necessary to fire one singlehouse at the right part of the town and the entire settlement ofwooden buildings would go up in flames. the whole populationprepared to defend themselves, increased the sentinels in thecompounds, appointed leaders for certain sections of the town,organized a special fire brigade and prepared horses, carts andfood for a hasty flight. the situation became worse when newsarrived from kobdo that the chinese there had made a pogrom,killing some of the inhabitants and burning the whole town after awild looting orgy. most of the people got away to the forests onthe mountains but it was at night and consequently without warmclothes and without food. during the following days thesemountains around kobdo heard many cries of misfortune, woe anddeath. the severe cold and hunger killed off the women andchildren out under the open sky of the mongolian winter. this newswas soon known to the chinese. they laughed in mockery and soonorganized a big meeting at the nagan hushun to discuss letting themob and gamins loose on the town.

a young chinese, the son of a cook of one of the colonists,revealed this news. we immediately decided to make aninvestigation. a russian officer and my friend joined me with thisyoung chinese as a guide for a trip to the outskirts of the town.

we feigned simply a stroll but were stopped by the chinese sentinelon the side of the city toward the nagan hushun with an impertinentcommand that no one was allowed to leave the town. as we spokewith him, i noticed that between the town and the nagan hushunchinese guards were stationed all along the way and that streams ofchinese were moving in that direction. we saw at once it wasimpossible to reach the meeting from this approach, so we choseanother route. we left the city from the eastern side and passedalong by the camp of the mongolians who had been reduced to beggaryby the chinese impositions. there also they were evidentlyanxiously awaiting the turn of events, for, in spite of thelateness of the hour, none had gone to sleep. we slipped out onthe ice and worked around by the river to the nagan hushun. as wepassed free of the city we began to sneak cautiously along, takingadvantage of every bit of cover. we were armed with revolvers andhand grenades and knew that a small detachment had been prepared inthe town to come to our aid, if we should be in danger. first theyoung chinese stole forward with my friend following him like ashadow, constantly reminding him that he would strangle him like amouse if he made one move to betray us. i fear the young guide didnot greatly enjoy the trip with my gigantic friend puffing all tooloudly with the unusual exertions. at last the fences of naganhushun were in sight and nothing between us and them save the openplain, where our group would have been easily spotted; so that wedecided to crawl up one by one, save that the chinese was retainedin the society of my trusted friend. fortunately there were manyheaps of frozen manure on the plain, which we made use of as coverto lead us right up to our objective point, the fence of theenclosures. in the shadow of this we slunk along to the courtyardwhere the voices of the excited crowd beckoned us. as we took goodvantage points in the darkness for listening and makingobservations, we remarked two extraordinary things in our immediateneighborhood.

another invisible guest was present with us at the chinesegathering. he lay on the ground with his head in a hole dug by thedogs under the fence. he was perfectly still and evidently had notheard our advance. nearby in a ditch lay a white horse with hisnose muzzled and a little further away stood another saddled horsetied to a fence.

in the courtyard there was a great hubbub. about two thousand menwere shouting, arguing and flourishing their arms about in wildgesticulations. nearly all were armed with rifles, revolvers,swords and axes. in among the crowd circulated the gamins,constantly talking, handing out papers, explaining and assuring.

finally a big, broad-shouldered chinese mounted the well combing,waved his rifle about over his head and opened a tirade in strong,sharp tones.

"he is assuring the people," said our interpreter, "that they mustdo here what the chinese have done in kobdo and must secure fromthe commissioner the assurance of an order to his guard not toprevent the carrying out of their plans. also that the chinesecommissioner must demand from the russians all their weapons.

'then we shall take vengeance on the russians for theirblagoveschensk crime when they drowned three thousand chinese in1900. you remain here while i go to the commissioner and talk withhim.'"he jumped down from the well and quickly made his way to the gatetoward the town. at once i saw the man who was lying with his headunder the fence draw back out of his hole, take his white horsefrom the ditch and then run over to untie the other horse and leadthem both back to our side, which was away from the city. he leftthe second horse there and hid himself around the corner of thehushun. the spokesman went out of the gate and, seeing his horseover on the other side of the enclosure, slung his rifle across hisback and started for his mount. he had gone about half way whenthe stranger behind the corner of the fence suddenly galloped outand in a flash literally swung the man clear from the ground upacross the pommel of his saddle, where we saw him tie the mouth ofthe semi-strangled chinese with a cloth and dash off with himtoward the west away from the town.

"who do you suppose he is?" i asked of my friend, who answered upat once: "it must be tushegoun lama. . . ."his whole appearance did strongly remind me of this mysterious lamaavenger and his manner of addressing himself to his enemy was astrict replica of that of tushegoun. late in the night we learnedthat some time after their orator had gone to seek thecommissioner's cooperation in their venture, his head had beenflung over the fence into the midst of the waiting audience andthat eight gamins had disappeared on their way from the hushun tothe town without leaving trace or trail. this event terrorized thechinese mob and calmed their heated spirits.

the next day we received very unexpected aid. a young mongolgalloped in from urga, his overcoat torn, his hair all dishevelledand fallen to his shoulders and a revolver prominent beneath hisgirdle. proceeding directly to the market where the mongols arealways gathered, without leaving his saddle he cried out:

"urga is captured by our mongols and chiang chun baron ungern!

bogdo hutuktu is once more our khan! mongols, kill the chinese andpillage their shops! our patience is exhausted!"through the crowd rose the roar of excitement. the rider wassurrounded with a mob of insistent questioners. the old mongolsait, chultun beyli, who had been dismissed by the chinese, was atonce informed of this news and asked to have the messenger broughtto him. after questioning the man he arrested him for inciting thepeople to riot, but he refused to turn him over to the chineseauthorities. i was personally with the sait at the time and heardhis decision in the matter. when the chinese commissioner, wangtsao-tsun, threatened the sait for disobedience to his authority,the old man simply fingered his rosary and said:

"i believe the story of this mongol in its every word and iapprehend that you and i shall soon have to reverse ourrelationship."i felt that wang tsao-tsun also accepted the correctness of themongol's story, because he did not insist further. from thismoment the chinese disappeared from the streets of uliassutai asthough they never had been, and synchronously the patrols of therussian officers and of our foreign colony took their places. thepanic among the chinese was heightened by the receipt of a lettercontaining the news that the mongols and altai tartars under theleadership of the tartar officer kaigorodoff pursued the chinesewho were making off with their booty from the sack of kobdo andovertook and annihilated them on the borders of sinkiang. anotherpart of the letter told how general bakitch and the six thousandmen who had been interned with him by the chinese authorities onthe river amyl had received arms and started to join with atamanannenkoff, who had been interned in kuldja, with the ultimateintention of linking up with baron ungern. this rumour proved tobe wrong because neither bakitch nor annenkoff entertained thisintention, because annenkoff had been transported by the chineseinto the depths of turkestan. however, the news produced veritablestupefaction among the chinese.

just at this time there arrived at the house of the bolshevistrussian colonist bourdukoff three bolshevik agents from irkutsknamed saltikoff, freimann and novak, who started an agitation amongthe chinese authorities to get them to disarm the russian officersand hand them over to the reds. they persuaded the chinese chamberof commerce to petition the irkutsk soviet to send a detachment ofreds to uliassutai for the protection of the chinese against thewhite detachments. freimann brought with him communistic pamphletsin mongolian and instructions to begin the reconstruction of thetelegraph line to irkutsk. bourdukoff also received some messagesfrom the bolsheviki. this quartette developed their policy verysuccessfully and soon saw wang tsao-tsun fall in with theirschemes. once more the days of expecting a pogrom in uliassutaireturned to us. the russian officers anticipated attempts toarrest them. the representative of one of the american firms wentwith me to the commissioner for a parley. we pointed out to himthe illegality of his acts, inasmuch as he was not authorized byhis government to treat with the bolsheviki when the sovietgovernment had not been recognized by peking. wang tsao-tsun andhis advisor fu hsiang were palpably confused at finding we knew ofhis secret meetings with the bolshevik agents. he assured us thathis guard was sufficient to prevent any such pogrom. it was quitetrue that his guard was very capable, as it consisted of welltrained and disciplined soldiers under the command of a serious-minded and well educated officer; but, what could eighty soldiersdo against a mob of three thousand coolies, one thousand armedmerchants and two hundred gamins? we strongly registered ourapprehensions and urged him to avoid any bloodshed, pointing outthat the foreign and russian population were determined to defendthemselves to the last moment. wang at once ordered theestablishment of strong guards on the streets and thus made a veryinteresting picture with all the russian, foreign and chinesepatrols moving up and down throughout the whole town. then we didnot know there were three hundred more sentinels on duty, the menof tushegoun lama hidden nearby in the mountains.

once more the picture changed very sharply and suddenly. themongolian sait received news through the lamas of the nearestmonastery that colonel kazagrandi, after fighting with the chineseirregulars, had captured van kure and had formed there russian-mongolian brigades of cavalry, mobilizing the mongols by the orderof the living buddha and the russians by order of baron ungern. afew hours later it became known that in the large monastery ofdzain the chinese soldiers had killed the russian captain barskyand as a result some of the troops of kazagrandi attacked and sweptthe chinese out of the place. at the taking of van kure therussians arrested a korean communist who was on his way from moscowwith gold and propaganda to work in korea and america. colonelkazagrandi sent this korean with his freight of gold to baronungern. after receiving this news the chief of the russiandetachment in uliassutai arrested all the bolsheviki agents andpassed judgment upon them and upon the murderers of the bobroffs.

kanine, madame pouzikoff and freimann were shot. regardingsaltikoff and novak some doubt sprang up and, moreover, saltikoffescaped and hid, while novak, under advice from lieutenant colonelmichailoff, left for the west. the chief of the russian detachmentgave out orders for the mobilization of the russian colonists andopenly took uliassutai under his protection with the tacitagreement of the mongolian authorities. the mongol sait, chultunbeyli, convened a council of the neighboring mongolian princes, thesoul of which was the noted mongolian patriot, hun jap lama. theprinces quickly formulated their demands upon the chinese for thecomplete evacuation of the territory subject to the sait chultunbeyli. out of it grew parleys, threats and friction between thevarious chinese and mongolian elements. wang tsao-tsun proposedhis scheme of settlement, which some of the mongolian princesaccepted; but jap lama at the decisive moment threw the chinesedocument to the ground, drew his knife and swore that he would dieby his own hand rather than set it as a seal upon this treacherousagreement. as a result the chinese proposals were rejected and theantagonists began to prepare themselves for the struggle. all thearmed mongols were summoned from jassaktu khan, sain-noion khan andthe dominion of jahantsi lama. the chinese authorities placedtheir four machine guns and prepared to defend the fortress.

continuous deliberations were held by both the chinese and mongols.

finally, our old acquaintance tzeren came to me as one of theunconcerned foreigners and handed to me the joint requests of wangtsao-tsun and chultun beyli to try to pacify the two elements andto work out a fair agreement between them. similar requests werehanded to the representative of an american firm. the followingevening we held the first meeting of the arbitrators and thechinese and mongolian representatives. it was passionate andstormy, so that we foreigners lost all hope of the success of ourmission. however, at midnight when the speakers were tired, wesecured agreement on two points: the mongols announced that theydid not want to make war and that they desired to settle thismatter in such a way as to retain the friendship of the greatchinese people; while the chinese commissioner acknowledged thatchina had violated the treaties by which full independence had beenlegally granted to mongolia.

these two points formed for us the groundwork of the next meetingand gave us the starting points for urging reconciliation. thedeliberations continued for three days and finally turned so thatwe foreigners could propose our suggestions for an agreement. itschief provisions were that the chinese authorities should surrenderadministrative powers, return the arms to the mongolians, disarmthe two hundred gamins and leave the country; and that the mongolson their side should give free and honorable passage of theircountry to the commissioner with his armed guard of eighty men.

this chinese-mongolian treaty of uliassutai was signed and sealedby the chinese commissioners, wang tsao-tsun and fu hsiang, by bothmongolian saits, by hun jap lama and other princes, as well as bythe russian and chinese presidents of the chambers of commerce andby us foreign arbitrators. the chinese officials and convoy beganat once to pack up their belongings and prepare for departure. thechinese merchants remained in uliassutai because sait chultunbeyli, now having full authority and power, guaranteed theirsafety. the day of departure for the expedition of wang tsao-tsunarrived. the camels with their packs already filled the yamencourt-yard and the men only awaited the arrival of their horsesfrom the plains. suddenly the news spread everywhere that the herdof horses had been stolen during the night and run off toward thesouth. of two soldiers that had been sent out to follow the tracksof the herd only one came back with the news that the other hadbeen killed. astonishment spread over the whole town while amongthe chinese it turned to open panic. it perceptibly increased whensome mongols from a distant ourton to the east came in andannounced that in various places along the post road to urga theyhad discovered the bodies of sixteen of the soldiers whom wangtsao-tsun had sent out with letters for urga. the mystery of theseevents will soon be explained.

the chief of the russian detachment received a letter from acossack colonel, v. n. domojiroff, containing the order to disarmimmediately the chinese garrison, to arrest all chinese officialsfor transport to baron ungern at urga, to take control ofuliassutai, by force if necessary, and to join forces with hisdetachment. at the very same time a messenger from the narabanchihutuktu galloped in with a letter to the effect that a russiandetachment under the leadership of hun boldon and coloneldomojiroff from urga had pillaged some chinese firms and killed themerchants, had come to the monastery and demanded horses, food andshelter. the hutuktu asked for help because the ferociousconqueror of kobdo, hun boldon, could very easily pillage theunprotected isolated monastery. we strongly urged colonelmichailoff not to violate the sealed treaty and discountenance allthe foreigners and russians who had taken part in making it, forthis would but be to imitate the bolshevik principle of makingdeceit the leading rule in all acts of state. this touchedmichailoff and he answered domojiroff that uliassutai was alreadyin his hands without a fight; that over the building of the formerrussian consulate the tri-color flag of russia was flying; thegamins had been disarmed but that the other orders could not becarried out, because their execution would violate the chinese-mongolian treaty just signed in uliassutai.

daily several envoys traveled from narabanchi hutuktu touliassutai. the news became more and more disquieting. thehutuktu reported that hun boldon was mobilizing the mongolianbeggars and horse stealers, arming and training them; that thesoldiers were taking the sheep of the monastery; that the "noyon"domojiroff was always drunk; and that the protests of the hutuktuwere answered with jeers and scolding. the messengers gave veryindefinite information regarding the strength of the detachment,some placing it at about thirty while others stated that domojiroffsaid he had eight hundred in all. we could not understand it atall and soon the messengers ceased coming. all the letters of thesait remained unanswered and the envoys did not return. thereseemed to be no doubt that the men had been killed or captured.

prince chultun beyli determined to go himself. he took with himthe russian and chinese presidents of the chambers of commerce andtwo mongolian officers. three days elapsed without receiving anynews from him whatever. the mongols began to get worried. thenthe chinese commissioner and hun jap lama addressed a request tothe foreigner group to send some one to narabanchi, in order to tryto resolve the controversy there and to persuade domojiroff torecognize the treaty and not permit the "great insult of violation"of a covenant between the two great peoples. our group asked meonce more to accomplish this mission pro bono publico. i hadassigned me as interpreter a fine young russian colonist, thenephew of the murdered bobroff, a splendid rider as well as a cool,brave man. lt.-colonel michailoff gave me one of his officers toaccompany me. supplied with an express tzara for the post horsesand guides, we traveled rapidly over the way which was now familiarto me to find my old friend, jelib djamsrap huktuktu of narabanchi.

although there was deep snow in some places, we made from onehundred to one hundred and fifteen miles per day.