AN ADVENTURE IN THE LAMA CITY 137 



ther into the crowd of lamas, who also were becoming 

 excited. I was being separated from Yvette, and real- 

 izing that it would be dangerous to get far away from 

 her, I suddenly wrenched my arm free and threw the 

 Mongol to the ground ; then I rushed through the line 

 of lamas surrounding Yvette, and we backed up against 

 the cart. 



I had an automatic pistol in my pocket, but it would 

 have been suicide to shoot except as a last resort. When 

 a Mongol "starts anything" he is sure to finish it; he is 

 not like a Chinese, who will usually run at the first 

 shot. We stood for at least three minutes with that 

 wall of scowling brutes ten feet away. They were un- 

 decided what to do and were only waiting for a leader 

 to close in. One huge beast over six feet tall was just 

 in front of me, and as I stood with my fingers crooked 

 about the trigger of the automatic in my pocket, I 

 thought, "If you start, I'm going to nail you any- 

 way." 



Just at this moment of indecision our Mongol leaped 

 on my wife's pony, shouted that he was going -to Duke 

 Loobitsan Yangsen, an influential friend of ours, and 

 dashed away. Instantly attention turned from us to 

 him. Fifty men were on horseback in a second, fly- 

 ing after him at full speed. I climbed into the cart, 

 shouting to Yvette to jump on Kublai Khan and run; 

 but she would not leave me. At full speed we dashed 

 down the hill, the plunging horses scattering lamas right 

 and left. Our young Mongol had saved us from a sit- 

 uation which momentarily might have become critical. 



