efore we left
the cultivated area we saw demoiselle cranes in thousands.

In this land where wood is absent and everything that will make a
fire is of value, I wondered how it happened that the telegraph
poles remained untouched, for every one was smooth and round without
a splinter gone. The method of protection is simple and entirely
Oriental. When the line was first erected, the Mongolian government
stated in an edict that any man who touched a pole with knife or ax
would lose his head. Even on the plains the enforcement of such a
law is not so difficult as it might seem, and after a few heads had
been taken by way of example the safety of the line was assured.

Our camp the first night was on a hill slope about one hundred miles
from Hei-ma-hou. As soon as the cars had stopped, one man was left
to untie the sleeping bags while the rest of us scattered over the
plain to hunt material for a fire. _Argul_ (dried dung) forms the
only desert fuel and, although it does not blaze like wood, it will
"boil a pot" almost as quickly as charcoal. I was elected to be the
cook--a position with distinct advantages, for in the freezing cold
of early morning I could linger about the fire with a good excuse.

It was a perfect autumn night. Every star in the world of space
seemed to have been crowded into our own particular expanse of sky,
and each one glowed like a tiny lantern. When I had found a patch of
sand and had dug a trench for my hip and shoulder, I crawled into
the sleeping bag and lay for half an hour looking up at the
bespangled canopy above my head. Again the magic of the desert night
was in my blood, and I blessed the fate which had carried me away
from the roar and rush of New York with its hurrying crowds. But I
felt a pang of envy when, far away in the distance, there came the
mellow notes of a camel-bell. _Dong_, _dong_, _dong_ it sounded,
clear and sweet as cathedral chimes. With surging blood I listened
until I caught the measured tread of padded feet, and saw the black
silhouettes of rounded bodies and curving necks. Oh, to be with
them, to travel as Marco Polo traveled, and to learn to know the
heart of the desert in the long night marches! Before I closed my
eyes that night I vowed that when the war was done and I was free to
travel where I willed, I would come again to the desert as the great
Venetian came.

CHAPTER II

SPEED MARVELS OF THE GOBI DESERT

The next morning, ten miles from camp, we pas