overturning him in a dazed condition but falling myself from the force of my effort and landing across him.
Fortunately for me, my third assailant, seeing the fate of his two companions and suffering himself from the lesser attentions I had bestowed upon his facial target, ran off without attempting to give further assistance to his associate. What made it so really unfortunate for me was the fact that, in falling, I had caught my foot under the rail and had twisted my leg so badly that I fainted. It was afterwards ascertained that I had seriously wrenched the hip joint.
It was probably only a few minutes before Shum and the Cossacks found me and restored me to consciousness with the cold water from the ditch. Then two of the soldiers placed me on their carbines and carried me back to my car, a very different-looking object from the hurrying form that had left it so shortly before. After roping the two men near me, Shum started off with his other Cossacks in search of the third fellow, whom they located in the bushes by the tracks he had made on leaving the railway embankment.
I had little thought, when ordering the doctor and nurses for the victims of the trumped-up accident, that I was arranging for myself. Soon the injured hip was bandaged, the wounds in my breast and hand dressed and I lay still, waiting for Shum to return and give directions to my assistants, as the doctor had announced that he would take me this same day to Harbin for proper treatment. Shum soon came back and reported to me:
"The Chinese who lay on the track is dead with a smashed jaw and some teeth out. The second one, who rolled off the track, cannot sit up, and I put him, together with the man we caught in the bushes, under guard in
