in a valley between two sharp ridges we discovered a herd of yaksand cattle being rapidly driven off to the north by ten mountedsoyots. approaching us warily they finally revealed that noyon(prince) of todji had ordered them to drive the herds along theburet hei into mongolia, apprehending the pillaging of the redpartisans. they proceeded but were informed by some soyot huntersthat this part of the tannu ola was occupied by the partisans fromthe village of vladimirovka. consequently they were forced toreturn. we inquired from them the whereabouts of these outpostsand how many partisans were holding the mountain pass over intomongolia. we sent out the tartar and the kalmuck for areconnaissance while all of us prepared for the further advance bywrapping the feet of our horses in our shirts and by muzzling theirnoses with straps and bits of rope so that they could not neigh.
it was dark when our investigators returned and reported to us thatabout thirty partisans had a camp some ten kilometers from us,occupying the yurtas of the soyots. at the pass were two outposts,one of two soldiers and the other of three. from the outposts tothe camp was a little over a mile. our trail lay between the twooutposts. from the top of the mountain one could plainly see thetwo posts and could shoot them all. when we had come near to thetop of this mountain, i left our party and, taking with me myfriend, the tartar, the kalmuck and two of the young officers,advanced. from the mountain i saw about five hundred yards aheadtwo fires. at each of the fires sat a soldier with his rifle andthe others slept. i did not want to fight with the partisans butwe had to do away with these outposts and that without firing or wenever should get through the pass. i did not believe the partisanscould afterwards track us because the whole trail was thicklymarked with the spoors of horses and cattle.
"i shall take for my share these two," whispered my friend,pointing to the left outpost.
the rest of us were to take care of the second post. i crept alongthrough the bushes behind my friend in order to help him in case ofneed; but i am bound to admit that i was not at all worried abouthim. he was about seven feet tall and so strong that, when a horseused to refuse sometimes to take the bit, he would wrap his armaround its neck, kick its forefeet out from under it and throw itso that he could easily bridle it on the ground. when only ahundred paces remained, i stood behind the bushes and watched. icould see very distinctly the fire and the dozing sentinel. he satwith his rifle on his knees. his companion, asleep beside him, didnot move. their white felt boots were plainly visible to me. fora long time i did not remark my friend. at the fire all was quiet.
suddenly from the other outpost floated over a few dim shouts andall was still. our sentinel slowly raised his head. but just atthis moment the huge body of my friend rose up and blanketed thefire from me and in a twinkling the feet of the sentinel flashedthrough the air, as my companion had seized him by the throat andswung him clear into the bushes, where both figures disappeared.
in a second he re-appeared, flourished the rifle of the partisanover his head and i heard the dull blow which was followed by anabsolute calm. he came back toward me and, confusedly smiling,said:
"it is done. god and the devil! when i was a boy, my motherwanted to make a priest out of me. when i grew up, i became atrained agronome in order . . . to strangle the people and smashtheir skulls. revolution is a very stupid thing!"and with anger and disgust he spit and began to smoke his pipe.
at the other outpost also all was finished. during this night wereached the top of the tannu ola and descended again into a valleycovered with dense bushes and twined with a whole network of smallrivers and streams. it was the headwaters of the buret hei. aboutone o'clock we stopped and began to feed our horses, as the grassjust there was very good. here we thought ourselves in safety. wesaw many calming indications. on the mountains were seen thegrazing herds of reindeers and yaks and approaching soyotsconfirmed our supposition. here behind the tannu ola the soyotshad not seen the red soldiers. we presented to these soyots abrick of tea and saw them depart happy and sure that we were"tzagan," a "good people."while our horses rested and grazed on the well-preserved grass, wesat by the fire and deliberated upon our further progress. theredeveloped a sharp controversy between two sections of our company,one led by a colonel who with four officers were so impressed bythe absence of reds south of the tannu ola that they determined towork westward to kobdo and then on to the camp on the emil riverwhere the chinese authorities had interned six thousand of theforces of general bakitch, which had come over into mongolianterritory. my friend and i with sixteen of the officers chose tocarry through our old plan to strike for the shores of lake kosogoland thence out to the far east. as neither side could persuade theother to abandon its ideas, our company was divided and the nextday at noon we took leave of one another. it turned out that ourown wing of eighteen had many fights and difficulties on the way,which cost us the lives of six of our comrades, but that theremainder of us came through to the goal of our journey so closelyknit by the ties of devotion which fighting and struggling for ourvery lives entailed that we have ever preserved for one another thewarmest feelings of friendship. the other group under coloneljukoff perished. he met a big detachment of red cavalry and wasdefeated by them in two fights. only two officers escaped. theyrelated to me this sad news and the details of the fights when wemet four months later in urga.
our band of eighteen riders with five packhorses moved up thevalley of the buret hei. we floundered in the swamps, passedinnumerable miry streams, were frozen by the cold winds and weresoaked through by the snow and sleet; but we persistedindefatigably toward the south end of kosogol. as a guide ourtartar led us confidently over these trails well marked by the feetof many cattle being run out of urianhai to mongolia.
