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82 Reds and seeking good pasturage for our horses. At about nine o'clock in the evening a fire shone out of the distance. My friend and I made toward it with the feeling that it was surely a Mongol yurta beside which we could camp in safety. We traveled over a mile before making out distinctly the lines of a group of yurtas. But nobody came out to meet us and, what astonished us more, we were not surrounded by the angry black Mongolian dogs with fiery eyes. Still, from the distance we had seen the fire and so there must be someone there. We dismounted from our horses and approached on foot. From out of the yurta rushed two Russian soldiers, one of whom shot at me with his pistol but missed me and wounded my horse in the back through the saddle. I brought him to earth with my Mauser and the other was killed by the butt end of my friend's rifle. We examined the bodies and found in their pockets the papers of soldiers of the Second Squadron of the Communist Interior Defence. Here we spent the night. The owners of the yurtas had evidently run away, for the Red soldiers had collected and packed in sacks the property of the Mongols. Probably they were just planning to leave, as they were fully dressed. We acquired two horses, which we found in the bushes, two rifles and two automatic pistols with cartridges. In the saddle bags we also found tea, tobacco, matches and cartridges—all of these valuable supplies to help us keep further hold on our lives.

Two days later we were approaching the shore of the River Uri when we met two Russian riders, who were the Cossacks of a certain Ataman Sutunin, acting against the Bolsheviki in the valley of the River Selenga. They