dense virgin wood surrounded us. in the high, already yellow grassthe trail wound hardly noticeable in among bushes and trees justbeginning to drop their many colored leaves. it is the old,already forgotten amyl pass road. twenty-five years ago it carriedthe provisions, machinery and workers for the numerous, nowabandoned, gold mines of the amyl valley. the road now wound alongthe wide and rapid amyl, then penetrated into the deep forest,guiding us round the swampy ground filled with those dangeroussiberian quagmires, through the dense bushes, across mountains andwide meadows. our guide probably did not surmise our realintention and sometimes, apprehensively looking down at the ground,would say:
"three riders on horses with shoes on have passed here. perhapsthey were soldiers."his anxiety was terminated when he discovered that the tracks ledoff to one side and then returned to the trail.
"they did not proceed farther," he remarked, slyly smiling.
"that's too bad," we answered. "it would have been more lively totravel in company."but the peasant only stroked his beard and laughed. evidently hewas not taken in by our statement.
we passed on the way a gold mine that had been formerly planned andequipped on splendid lines but was now abandoned and the buildingsall destroyed. the bolsheviki had taken away the machinery,supplies and also some parts of the buildings. nearby stood a darkand gloomy church with windows broken, the crucifix torn off andthe tower burned, a pitifully typical emblem of the russia oftoday. the starving family of the watchman lived at the mine incontinuing danger and privation. they told us that in this forestregion were wandering about a band of reds who were robbinganything that remained on the property of the gold mine, wereworking the pay dirt in the richest part of the mine and, with alittle gold washed, were going to drink and gamble it away in somedistant villages where the peasants were making the forbidden vodkaout of berries and potatoes and selling it for its weight in gold.
a meeting with this band meant death. after three days we crossedthe northern ridge of the sayan chain, passed the border riveralgiak and, after this day, were abroad in the territory ofurianhai.
this wonderful land, rich in most diverse forms of natural wealth,is inhabited by a branch of the mongols, which is now only sixtythousand and which is gradually dying off, speaking a languagequite different from any of the other dialects of this folk andholding as their life ideal the tenet of "eternal peace." urianhailong ago became the scene of administrative attempts by russians,mongols and chinese, all of whom claimed sovereignty over theregion whose unfortunate inhabitants, the soyots, had to paytribute to all three of these overlords. it was due to this thatthe land was not an entirely safe refuge for us. we had heardalready from our militiaman about the expedition preparing to gointo urianhai and from the peasants we learned that the villagesalong the little yenisei and farther south had formed reddetachments, who were robbing and killing everyone who fell intotheir hands. recently they had killed sixty-two officersattempting to pass urianhai into mongolia; robbed and killed acaravan of chinese merchants; and killed some german war prisonerswho escaped from the soviet paradise. on the fourth day we reacheda swampy valley where, among open forests, stood a single russianhouse. here we took leave of our guide, who hastened away to getback before the snows should block his road over the sayans. themaster of the establishment agreed to guide us to the seybi riverfor ten thousand roubles in soviet notes. our horses were tiredand we were forced to give them a rest, so we decided to spendtwenty-four hours here.
we were drinking tea when the daughter of our host cried:
"the soyots are coming!" into the room with their rifles andpointed hats came suddenly four of them.
"mende," they grunted to us and then, without ceremony, beganexamining us critically. not a button or a seam in our entireoutfit escaped their penetrating gaze. afterwards one of them, whoappeared to be the local "merin" or governor, began to investigateour political views. listening to our criticisms of thebolsheviki, he was evidently pleased and began talking freely.
"you are good people. you do not like bolsheviki. we will helpyou."i thanked him and presented him with the thick silk cord which iwas wearing as a girdle. before night they left us saying thatthey would return in the morning. it grew dark. we went to themeadow to look after our exhausted horses grazing there and cameback to the house. we were gaily chatting with the hospitable hostwhen suddenly we heard horses' hoofs in the court and raucousvoices, followed by the immediate entry of five red soldiers armedwith rifles and swords. something unpleasant and cold rolled upinto my throat and my heart hammered. we knew the reds as ourenemies. these men had the red stars on their astrakhan caps andred triangles on their sleeves. they were members of thedetachment that was out to look for cossack officers. scowling atus they took off their overcoats and sat down. we first opened theconversation, explaining the purpose of our journey in exploringfor bridges, roads and gold mines. from them we then learned thattheir commander would arrive in a little while with seven more menand that they would take our host at once as a guide to the seybiriver, where they thought the cossack officers must be hidden.
immediately i remarked that our affairs were moving fortunately andthat we must travel along together. one of the soldiers repliedthat that would depend upon the "comrade-officer."during our conversation the soyot governor entered. veryattentively he studied again the new arrivals and then asked: "whydid you take from the soyots the good horses and leave bad ones?"the soldiers laughed at him.
"remember that you are in a foreign country!" answered the soyot,with a threat in his voice.
"god and the devil!" cried one of the soldiers.
but the soyot very calmly took a seat at the table and accepted thecup of tea the hostess was preparing for him. the conversationceased. the soyot finished the tea, smoked his long pipe and,standing up, said:
"if tomorrow morning the horses are not back at the owner's, weshall come and take them." and with these words he turned and wentout.
i noticed an expression of apprehension on the faces of thesoldiers. shortly one was sent out as a messenger while the otherssat silent with bowed heads. late in the night the officer arrivedwith his other seven men. as he received the report about thesoyot, he knitted his brows and said:
"it's a bad mess. we must travel through the swamp where a soyotwill be behind every mound watching us."he seemed really very anxious and his trouble fortunately preventedhim from paying much attention to us. i began to calm him andpromised on the morrow to arrange this matter with the soyots. theofficer was a coarse brute and a silly man, desiring strongly to bepromoted for the capture of the cossack officers, and feared thatthe soyot could prevent him from reaching the seybi.
at daybreak we started together with the red detachment. when wehad made about fifteen kilometers, we discovered behind the bushestwo riders. they were soyots. on their backs were their flintrifles.
"wait for me!" i said to the officer. "i shall go for a parleywith them."i went forward with all the speed of my horse. one of the horsemenwas the soyot governor, who said to me:
"remain behind the detachment and help us.""all right," i answered, "but let us talk a little, in order thatthey may think we are parleying."after a moment i shook the hand of the soyot and returned to thesoldiers.
"all right," i exclaimed, "we can continue our journey. nohindrance will come from the soyots."we moved forward and, when we were crossing a large meadow, weespied at a long distance two soyots riding at full gallop right upthe side of a mountain. step by step i accomplished the necessarymanoeuvre to bring me and my fellow traveler somewhat behind thedetachment. behind our backs remained only one soldier, verybrutish in appearance and apparently very hostile to us. i hadtime to whisper to my companion only one word: "mauser," and sawthat he very carefully unbuttoned the saddle bag and drew out alittle the handle of his pistol.
soon i understood why these soldiers, excellent woodsmen as theywere, would not attempt to go to the seybi without a guide. allthe country between the algiak and the seybi is formed by high andnarrow mountain ridges separated by deep swampy valleys. it is acursed and dangerous place. at first our horses mired to theknees, lunging about and catching their feet in the roots of bushesin the quagmires, then falling and pinning us under their sides,breaking parts of their saddles and bridles. then we would go inup to the riders' knees. my horse went down once with his wholebreast and head under the red fluid mud and we just saved it and nomore. afterwards the officer's horse fell with him so that hebruised his head on a stone. my companion injured one knee againsta tree. some of the men also fell and were injured. the horsesbreathed heavily. somewhere dimly and gloomily a crow cawed.
later the road became worse still. the trail followed through thesame miry swamp but everywhere the road was blocked with fallentree trunks. the horses, jumping over the trunks, would land in anunexpectedly deep hole and flounder. we and all the soldiers werecovered with blood and mud and were in great fear of exhausting ourmounts. for a long distance we had to get down and lead them. atlast we entered a broad meadow covered with bushes and borderedwith rocks. not only horses but riders also began to sink to theirmiddle in a quagmire with apparently no bottom. the whole surfaceof the meadow was but a thin layer of turf, covering a lake withblack putrefying water. when we finally learned to open our columnand proceed at big intervals, we found we could keep on thissurface that undulated like rubber ice and swayed the bushes up anddown. in places the earth buckled up and broke.
suddenly, three shots sounded. they were hardly more than thereport of a flobert rifle; but they were genuine shots, because theofficer and two soldiers fell to the ground. the other soldiersgrabbed their rifles and, with fear, looked about for the enemy.
four more were soon unseated and suddenly i noticed our rearguardbrute raise his rifle and aim right at me. however, my mauseroutstrode his rifle and i was allowed to continue my story.
"begin!" i cried to my friend and we took part in the shooting.
soon the meadow began to swarm with soyots, stripping the fallen,dividing the spoils and recapturing their horses. in some forms ofwarfare it is never safe to leave any of the enemy to renewhostilities later with overwhelming forces.
after an hour of very difficult road we began to ascend themountain and soon arrived on a high plateau covered with trees.
"after all, soyots are not a too peaceful people," i remarked,approaching the governor.
he looked at me very sharply and replied:
"it was not soyots who did the killing."he was right. it was the abakan tartars in soyot clothes whokilled the bolsheviki. these tartars were running their herds ofcattle and horses down out of russia through urianhai to mongolia.
they had as their guide and negotiator a kalmuck lamaite. thefollowing morning we were approaching a small settlement of russiancolonists and noticed some horsemen looking out from the woods.
one of our young and brave tartars galloped off at full speedtoward these men in the wood but soon wheeled and returned with areassuring smile.
"all right," he exclaimed, laughing, "keep right on."we continued our travel on a good broad road along a high woodenfence surrounding a meadow filled with a fine herd of wapiti orizubr, which the russian colonists breed for the horns that are sovaluable in the velvet for sale to tibetan and chinese medicinedealers. these horns, when boiled and dried, are called panti andare sold to the chinese at very high prices.
we were received with great fear by the settlers.
"thank god!" exclaimed the hostess, "we thought. . ." and she brokeoff, looking at her husband.
