GREAT RAM OF THE SHANSI MOUNTAINS 187 



south China, volunteered to get them with me. The 

 brigands did not worry us unduly, for we both have had 

 considerable experience with Chinese bandits and we 

 feel that they are like animals — if you don't tease them, 

 they won't bite. In this case the "teasing" takes the 

 form of carrying anything that they could readily dis- 

 pose of — especially money. I decided that my wife 

 must remain in Peking. She was in open rebellion 

 but there was just a possibility that the brigands might 

 annoy us, and we had determined to have those sheep 

 regardless of consequences. 



Although we did not expect trouble, I knew that 

 Harry Caldwell could be relied upon in any emergency. 

 When a man will crawl into a tiger's lair, a tangle of 

 sword grass and thorns, just to find out what the brute 

 has had for dinner ; when he will walk into the open in 

 dim light and shoot, with a .22 high-power rifle, a tiger 

 which is just ready to charge ; when he will go alone and 

 unarmed into the mountains to meet a band of brigands 

 who have been terrorizing the country, it means that he 

 has more nerve than any one man needs in this life! 



After leaving the train at Feng-chen, the journey 

 was like all others in north China; slow progress with a 

 cart over atrocious roads which are either a mass of 

 sticky mud or inches deep in fine brown dust. We had 

 four days of it before we reached the mountains but the 

 trip was full of interest to us both, for along the road 

 there was an ever-changing picture of provincial life. 

 To Harry it was especially illuminating because he had 

 spent nineteen years in south China and had never be- 



