Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/53

 was a hot night.

Gray, naked except for shirt and socks, lay under the mosquito netting and wished that he had brought double the amount of insect powder he had. Across the room Delabar had subsided into fitful snores. The night was not quiet.

In the courtyard of the hotel some Chinese servants were at their perpetual gambling, their shrill voices coming up through the shutters. On the further side of the street a guitar twanged monotonously. Somewhere, a dog yelped.

The warm odors of the place assaulted Gray's nostrils unpleasantly. They were strange, potent odors, a mingling of dirt, refuse, horses, the remnants of cooking. Gray sighed, longing for the clean air of the plains toward which they were headed.

They were still far from the Gobi's edge. The distance seemed to stretch out interminably. It is not easy to cross the broad bosom of China.

He wondered what success they would have. What was the city of Sungan? How had it es-