At about five o’clock we reached a place where the two roads meet, but no signs of the _talgoogy_. It was fast growing dark, a mountain pass lay yet before us, the road was wild and lonely, we wished our little one was with us. At length we went on to the village just beyond the pass and waited. Time passed, but no tidings of the cart and its precious contents. Darkness fell, the cold was bitter. Koreans were sent out with lanterns to light the way for the belated, or render any needed help. Still no word. At length Mr. Underwood himself, unable to wait longer, went out to look for the party. And now with them both in the lonely mountain, and night upon us, I had double need to trust in God. One always knows that all will be well, will be for the best, but as one cannot see whether that _best_ means God’s rod or his staff, the heart will flutter in dread of the pain. Just to wait without fear upon him, takes a calm, strong soul, and a full measure of grace. At last, thank God, they both came back quite unharmed, only hungry and cold, but the thought of tigers, leopards and robbers, that might have met them, only made me realize more fully the mercy which brought them safe to my arms. That night we slept in a small Korean inn quite like all the rest, only a little smaller and dirtier than most, with domestic animals and fowls of all sorts quartered round us, the paper door of our room only separating between them and us. Suddenly, about two or three in the morning, we were startled out of our sleep by the most terrific roaring, and the sounds of a general panic in the inn; the excited shouts of men, women shrieking, and such a chorus of barking, yelping, cackling, squealing as cannot be described. But the awful roaring, and a stamping and hustling distinguishable above all, made it seem probable that one or more wild animals of some sort had invaded the hostel. Mr. Underwood hastily extinguished our light, which shining through our door, might attract notice, and went out to discover the cause of the uproar. He soon came back, saying that a couple of oxen, usually so meek and tractable, had been fighting, had pulled themselves loose from their stalls, and had now escaped, one chasing the other out of the inn. They are enormous creatures, at times like this as dangerous as any wild beast, and it was remarkable that no one in the inn was seriously hurt, as they could hardly have escaped being, had the oxen remained fighting in the cramped confines of that little place. [Illustration: KOREAN STREET. PAGE 18] [Illustration: HORSES IN AN INN YARD. PAGE 198]