Two days later we reached Chieng Sên. Here we received a mail from home, with news that Mrs. McKean was not well, and other members of the station needed the doctor’s presence. It was expressed as “the unanimous judgment of the station that he should return immediately.” We had planned a regular campaign in the Mūsô districts on both sides of the Mê Kōng—the sort of trip in which the medical missionary finds his best opportunity. But the recall was so imperative that it could not be ignored. So I was left to continue the work alone. The Mūsô tribe was about equally numerous in the mountain ranges on both sides of the big river. On the east side there were eleven villages. It seemed advisable to take that section first, because they were under Chieng Sên rulers, of whose cordial and sincere interest in our work we were sure. Sên Chai, the head man of the large village nearest to the city, was a friend of Nān Suwan, and was strongly inclined to embrace our religion; but felt the difficulty of breaking the tribal bond. Before this I had made him a visit of two or three days, and saw clearly that our only chance of accomplishing anything was to gain all the head men of the eleven villages. It was actually easier to win over the whole as a unit than to win it piecemeal. This was a formidable task to undertake, but with God’s blessing on the labours of Cha Pū Kaw and Nān Suwan, it seemed not impossible. We set out for the first village one morning shortly after ten o’clock. It was four o’clock when we stopped for rest at the first cluster of houses on the outskirts of the settlement. The news of our arrival soon reached the main village. When we started again we met Sên Chai with a regular serenade-party of men and boys with native reed instruments, blowing their plaintive dirge-like music, to welcome us and escort us in. Soon the population was all assembled—the maidens in their best sarongs, the mothers and grandmothers each with an urchin strapped to her back by her scarf, the men coming in from their work, and the inevitable crowd of children. Cha Pū Kaw was already answering their questions, with Nān Suwan’s sympathetic aid. They were respectfully shy, but there was no cringing. Sên Chai invited the local Pū Chān and all the villagers to assemble after their evening meal to hear the new doctrines. We first had worship with singing, and prayer by Cha Pū Kaw. It was the first time they had heard the Great Spirit addressed in their own Mūsô tongue. There were frequent exclamations of delight that they were able to understand every word.