During the night my men were particularly good to me. We did not sleep for fear of being surprised by the Tibetan soldiers. We passed hour after hour listening to Shoka stories of brigands and barbarous Tibetan tortures. Little I knew then what was in store for me. Early in the morning, when it grew light, we gathered a quantity of nettles, which were plentiful near this camp, and having boiled them thoroughly, we made of them a hearty if not quite an appetizing meal. They did not seem unpalatable at the time, and had we possessed salt to add taste and digestibility to our prickly diet, we might have felt quite happy. We supplied the deficiency by mixing with them a double quantity of pepper. At any rate, it was a relief to know that, while nettles lasted near our camp, we should at least not die of starvation. CHAPTER IX AN ATTEMPT AT MUTINY The entire food-supply for my men was now reduced to four pounds of flour, two pounds of rice, and two pounds of _satoo_. This we gave to the four men who were to attempt to enter Taklakot. Their journey would be long and fatiguing. For us there were plenty of nettles to fall back upon. For myself I had a small quantity of tinned provisions, but I intended to keep these for worse days which, I feared, were in store for me. I carefully instructed the four Shokas how to enter the Tibetan fort one by one in their disguises, and, in order to avoid suspicion, purchase only in small quantities at a time the provisions we required. When a sufficient amount was obtained to make one load, a man should immediately start back for our camp. The others were to follow separately for a few marches. At a given spot they would all four meet again and return together to us. It was exciting work to prepare the different disguises and arrange for everything. At last, after repeated good-byes and words of encouragement, the four messengers left on their perilous errand. All seemed quiet around us, so quiet that I unburied my sextant and artificial horizon and was taking astronomical observations when a herd of over a hundred yaks appeared on the pass north of our camp, and slowly advanced toward us. Were we discovered? Were the Tarjum's men coming, preceded by their animals? No time was to be lost. Instruments and blankets were quickly cleared away and hidden. Crawling up toward the animals, that had stopped on seeing us, we threw stones at them in order to drive them down the next creek. We were just in time to do this and return to our hiding-place when we saw, on the summit of the pass and on the other side, a number of Tibetans following the yaks we had driven away. The Tibetans passed only a couple of hundred yards below us, evidently quite unaware of our presence. They were apparently looking for our tracks, for they often stooped to examine the ground.