We presented to these Soyots a brick 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, we sat by the fire and deliberated upon our further progress.

There developed a sharp controversy between two sections of our company, one led by a Colonel who with four officers were so impressed by the absence of Reds south of the Tannu Ola that they determined to work westward to Kobdo and then on to the camp on the Emil River where the Chinese authorities had interned six thousand of the forces of General Bakitch, which had come over into Mongolian territory.

My friend and I with sixteen of the officers chose to carry through our old plan to strike for the shores of Lake Kosogol and thence out to the Far East.

As neither side could persuade the other to abandon its ideas, our company was divided and the next day at noon we took leave of one another.

It turned out that our own wing of eighteen had many fights and difficulties on the way, which cost us the lives of six of our comrades, but that the remainder of us came through to the goal of our journey so closely knit by the ties of devotion which fighting and struggling for our very lives entailed that we have ever preserved for one another the warmest feelings of friendship.