28 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



Coltman or Guptil do not know about the "insides" of 

 a motor and, moreover, after a diagnosis, they both have 

 the ingenuity to remedy almost any trouble with a ham- 

 mer and a screw driver. 



Four days after our arrival in Urga we left on the 

 return trip. As occupants of his car Charles Coltman 

 had Mr. Price, Mrs. Coltman, and Mrs. Mamen. With 

 the spiritual and physical assistance of Mr. Guptil I 

 drove the second automobile, carrying in the rear seat 

 a wounded Russian Cossack and a French- Czech, both 

 couriers. The third car was a Ford chassis to which a 

 wooden body had been affixed. It was designed to give 

 increased carrying space, but it looked like a half-grown 

 hayrack and was appropriately called the "agony box." 

 This was driven by a chauffeur named Wang and car- 

 ried Mamen's Chinese house boy and an amah besides a 

 miscellaneous assortment of baggage. 



It was a cold, gray morning when we started, with a 

 cutting wind sweeping down from the north, giving a 

 hint of the bitter winter which in another month would 

 hold all Mongolia in an icy grasp. We made our way 

 eastward up the valley to the Russian bridge across the 

 Tola River and pointed the cars southward on the cara- 

 van trail to Kalgan. 



Just as we reached the summit of the second long hill, 

 across which the wind was sweeping in a glacial blast, 

 there came a rasping crash somewhere in the motor of 

 my car, followed by a steady knock, knock, knock. 

 "That's a connecting rod as sure as fate," said "Gup." 

 "We'll have to stop." When he had crawled under the 



