NEW TRAVELS ON AN OLD TRAIL 43 



the skins. There was a hint of rain in the air and we 

 pitched the tent for emergencies, although none of us 

 wished to sleep inside. Mac suggested that we util- 

 ize the electric light plant even if we were on the 

 Mongolian plains. In half an hour he had installed 

 wires in the tent and placed an arc lamp on the summit 

 of a pole. It was an extraordinary experience to see 

 the canvas walls about us, to hear the mournful wail of 

 a lone wolf outside, and yet be able to turn the switch 

 of an electric light as though we were in the city. No 

 arc lamp on Fifth Avenue blazed more brightly than 

 did this one on the edge of the Gobi Desert where none 

 of its kind had ever shone before. With the motor 

 cars which had stolen the sanctity of the plains it was 

 only another evidence of the passing of Mongolian mys- 

 tery. 



Usually when we camped we could see, almost imme- 

 diately, the silhouettes of approaching Mongols black 

 against the evening sky. Where they came from we 

 could never guess. For miles there might not have 

 been the trace of a human being, but suddenly they 

 would appear as though from out the earth itself. Per- 

 haps they had been riding along some distant ridge 

 far beyond the range of white men's eyes, or the roar 

 of a motor had carried to their ears across the miles of 

 plain; or perhaps it was that unknown sense, which 

 seems to have been developed in these children of the 

 desert, which directs them unerringly to water, to a lost 

 horse, or to others of their kind. Be it what it may. 



