Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-12-10
Continued from page S

one clear morning gained position on an
elevated bench commanding, across a mar
row valley leading up toward the Kailas
peaks, the fortified town it had been planned
we should strike.
PLANTED, like the strongholds of all noun
taineers, on narrow cliff buttress jutting
out into the valley, the place could not be
stormed without terrible losses: must be
subdued and taken either by long range
howitzer fire or by the winning of the wall
crest on a night surprise.
Quickly the guns of our little battery
were set up, the range got; and then for six
days and nights we hammered the beggarS
persistently. But all to no purpose; for,
with their antiquated firearms, helpless of
offense across the five hundred yards of in
tervening distance between the town and
our position, all but few watchers of the
Tibetans lay, as we later learned, safely cud-
died in rock-hewn retreats beneath their
houses, which, stone and mud of wall, suf
fered little from the fires that here and there
started but soon fickered out.
Something had to be done. Tucker was
getting low. Troops were weakening fast
from long continued exposure. A direct
assault must be made; but how? All the
Old uns puzzled over the situation and gave
it up: considered there was nothing for it
but retirement for supplies and ammunition
H.
RUT right there the junior Captain cut
- into the game-a wild little rip, about
nv size, who was always drinking too too cursed
hard and raising merry hell in garrison; but
who, the old Colonel used to say, was never
off his feed or feet when there was anything
warm doing in the field.
Convinced that there must be a praC-
ticable path up the hill, short cut between
stream and town, the little Brighter got per-
mission to have try on his own; descended,
before daylight of the seventh day, into the
valley, and crossed it until he came close to
the margin of the stream and within seventy
five yards of the walls of the town. And
there he buried himself in the snow, in such
a position that, with his eyes uncovered, he
could command a full view of the cliff and
the town walls above it. So burrowed in the
snow he stayed throughout the day, the
night, and the next day, without detecting
any sign to verify his theory; when, numb
and starved out he stiff1y clambered up to
camp after nightfall.
sold 'un wanted him to give it up; but
the little beauty was ever stubborn t1ke,
and persuaded the granting of chance for
another try.
$50, early the morning of the ninth day. of
the siege, rested and fed, again he buried
from which he would have a view from a
new angle.
"And by mdafternoon the Johnnys stub
bornness was rewarded. Reused from a
momentary doze, come of his long hours of
vigil, he saw goat winding down the cliff,
plainly following the line of path hidden
in the snow. Following upward the route
of the goats descent, presently his eyes rec
ognized the outline of a cunningly contrived
chute, platform loaded with huge boul-
ders whose support could be released by a
cord, leading up to and within the walls and
discharged to sweep the path of any enemies
mad enough to attempt scaling it.
Same bally junior Captain led the adj
vance of the assaulting column the next
night, found and cut the trigger cord of the
chute, and safely prisoned it with wedge;
and in the hours hard house to house fight
ing that served to convince Western Tibet
that it is easier and more profitable to trade
with Indo-Brtain than to fight her, he did
his CORY bit, did that little Brighter of a
Captain
THE low monotone, for sometime sunk al
l most to a whisper, had no more than
ceased, when, weary, past further control
even by the subconscious mind, the frail
Go,,ra of o,,r u,,act fell Ero,, oooi,, ,,;+oboJ