med, except forward, and yet the Mongol managed to keep his
rolling old "ship of the desert" abreast of us for several minutes.
Finally we let him win the race, and his look of delight was worth
going far to see as he waved us good-by and with a hearty
"_sai-bei-nah_" loped slowly back to the caravan.

The road was much better than it had been the previous fall. During
the winter the constant tramp of padded feet had worn down and
filled the ruts which had been cut by the summer traffic of
spike-wheeled carts. But the camels had almost finished their winter's
work. In a few weeks they would leave the trail to ox and pony
caravans and spend the hot months in idleness, storing quantities of
fat in their great hump reservoirs.

There was even more bird life than I had seen the previous
September. The geese had all flown northward where we would find
them scattered over their summer breeding grounds, but thousands of
demoiselle cranes (_Anthropoides virgo_) had taken their places in
the fields. They were in the midst of the spring courting and seemed
to have lost all fear. One pair remained beside the road until we
were less than twenty feet away, stepping daintily aside only when
we threatened to run them down. Another splendid male performed a
love dance for the benefit of his prospective bride quite
undisturbed by the presence of our cars. With half-spread wings he
whirled and leaped about the lady while every feather on her slim,
blue body expressed infinite boredom and indifference to his
passionate appeal.

Ruddy sheldrakes, mallards, shoveler ducks, and teal were in even
the smallest ponds and avocets with sky-blue legs and slender
recurved bills ran along the shores of a lake at which we stopped
for tiffin. When we had passed the last Chinese village and were
well in the Mongolian grasslands we had great fun shooting gophers
(_Citellus mongolicus umbratus_) from the cars. It was by no means
easy to kill them before they slipped into their dens, and I often
had to burrow like a terrier to pull them out even when they were
almost dead.

We got eighteen, and camped at half past four in order that the
taxidermists might have time to prepare 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 utilize the
electric light plant even if we were on the Mongolian plains. In
half an hour he had installed wires in the tent