At dawn of the following morning they led up the splendid whitecamel for me and we moved away. My company consisted of the twoCossacks, two Mongol soldiers and one Lama with two pack camelscarrying the tent and food. I still apprehended that the Baron hadit in mind not to dispose of me before my friends there in Van Kurebut to prepare this journey for me under the guise of which itwould be so easy to do away with me by the road. A bullet in theback and all would be finished. Consequently I was momentarilyready to draw my revolver and defend myself. I took care all thetime to have the Cossacks either ahead of me or at the side. Aboutnoon we heard the distant honk of a motor car and soon saw BaronUngern whizzing by us at full speed. With him were two adjutantsand Prince Daichin Van. The Baron greeted me very kindly andshouted:

"Shall see you again in Urga!""Ah!" I thought, "evidently I shall reach Urga. So I can be atease during my trip, and in Urga I have many friends beside thepresence there of the bold Polish soldiers whom I had worked within Uliassutai and who had outdistanced me in this journey."After the meeting with the Baron my Cossacks became very attentiveto me and sought to distract me with stories. They told me abouttheir very severe struggles with the Bolsheviki in Transbaikaliaand Mongolia, about the battle with the Chinese near Urga, aboutfinding communistic passports on several Chinese soldiers fromMoscow, about the bravery of Baron Ungern and how he would sit atthe campfire smoking and drinking tea right on the battle linewithout ever being touched by a bullet. At one fight seventy-fourbullets entered his overcoat, saddle and the boxes by his side andagain left him untouched. This is one of the reasons for his greatinfluence over the Mongols. They related how before the battle hehad made a reconnaissance in Urga with only one Cossack and on hisway back had killed a Chinese officer and two soldiers with hisbamboo stick or tashur; how he had no outfit save one change oflinen and one extra pair of boots; how he was always calm andjovial in battle and severe and morose in the rare days of peace;and how he was everywhere his soldiers were fighting.

I told them, in turn, of my escape from Siberia and with chattingthus the day slipped by very quickly. Our camels trotted all thetime, so that instead of the ordinary eighteen to twenty miles perday we made nearly fifty. My mount was the fastest of them all.

He was a huge white animal with a splendid thick mane and had beenpresented to Baron Ungern by some Prince of Inner Mongolia with twoblack sables tied on the bridle. He was a calm, strong, bold giantof the desert, on whose back I felt myself as though perched on thetower of a building. Beyond the Orkhon River we came across thefirst dead body of a Chinese soldier, which lay face up and armsoutstretched right in the middle of the road. When we had crossedthe Burgut Mountains, we entered the Tola River valley, farther upwhich Urga is located. The road was strewn with the overcoats,shirts, boots, caps and kettles which the Chinese had thrown awayin their flight; and marked by many of their dead. Further on theroad crossed a morass, where on either side lay great mounds of thedead bodies of men, horses and camels with broken carts andmilitary debris of every sort. Here the Tibetans of Baron Ungernhad cut up the escaping Chinese baggage transport; and it was astrange and gloomy contrast to see the piles of dead besides theeffervescing awakening life of spring. In every pool wild ducks ofdifferent kinds floated about; in the high grass the cranesperformed their weird dance of courtship; on the lakes great flocksof swans and geese were swimming; through the swampy places likespots of light moved the brilliantly colored pairs of the Mongoliansacred bird, the turpan or "Lama............