Our trip from Tisingol to Uliassutai in the company of these criminals was very unpleasant. My friend and I entirely lost our usual strength of spirit and healthy frame of mind. Kanine persistently brooded and thought while the impudent woman laughed, smoked and joked with the soldiers and several of our companions. At last we crossed the Jagisstai and in a few hours descried at first the fortress and then the low adobe houses huddled on the plain, which we knew to be Uliassutai. CHAPTER XXV HARASSING DAYS Once more we found ourselves in the whirl of events. During our fortnight away a great deal had happened here. The Chinese Commissioner Wang Tsao-tsun had sent eleven envoys to Urga but none had returned. The situation in Mongolia remained far from clear. The Russian detachment had been increased by the arrival of new colonists and secretly continued its illegal existence, although the Chinese knew about it through their omnipresent system of spies. In the town no Russian or foreign citizens left their houses and all remained armed and ready to act. At night armed sentinels stood guard in all their court-yards. It was the Chinese who induced such precautions. By order of their Commissioner all the Chinese merchants with stocks of rifles armed their staffs and handed over any surplus guns to the officials, who with these formed and equipped a force of two hundred coolies into a special garrison of gamins. Then they took possession of the Mongolian arsenal and distributed these additional guns among the Chinese vegetable farmers in the nagan hushun, where there was always a floating population of the lowest grade of transient Chinese laborers. This trash of China now felt themselves strong, gathered together in excited discussions and evidently were preparing for some outburst of aggression. At night the coolies transported many boxes of cartridges from the Chinese shops to the nagan hushun and the behaviour of the Chinese mob became unbearably audacious. These coolies and gamins impertinently stopped and searched people right on the streets and sought to provoke fights that would allow them to take anything they wanted. Through secret news we received from certain Chinese quarters we learned that the Chinese were preparing a pogrom for all the Russians and Mongols in Uliassutai. We fully realized that it was only necessary to fire one single house at the right part of the town and the entire settlement of wooden buildings would go up in flames. The whole population prepared to defend themselves, increased the sentinels in the compounds, appointed leaders for certain sections of the town, organized a special fire brigade and prepared horses, carts and food for a hasty flight. The situation became worse when news arrived from Kobdo that the Chinese there had made a pogrom, killing some of the inhabitants and burning the whole town after a wild looting orgy. Most of the people got away to the forests on the mountains but it was at night and