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She has had an interesting life and one not devoid of danger. The Chinese Government was required to pay a considerable indemnity to Miss Hartford, which she accepted only under protest and characteristically devoted to missionary work in Kucheng where the massacre occurred. Conditions at Yuchi when we arrived were most unsettled and for some months there had been a veritable "reign of terror."

He immediately went to Foochow and reported to the governor that there was a band of brigands abroad in Yuchi County under the leadership of Su Ek, and that they had robbed and plundered his property. Without warning a company of soldiers swooped down upon the community and arrested a number of men whose names the informer had given.

Sunday morning at half past three, a band of one hundred men from Yuchi had marched to Yen-ping where they were received by a delegation of rebels dressed in white who opened to them the east gate of the city.

Very few travelers reach these places during the year and the white inhabitants are almost isolated. Miss Mabel Hartford lives alone at Yuchi and at one time she saw only one foreigner in eight months. Miss Cordelia Morgan is the sole foreign resident of Chu-hsuing Fu, a large Chinese city six days from Yün-nan Fu.

On the whole our river men were nice fellows but they had the love of companionship characteristic of all Chinese and the inherent desire to huddle together as closely as possible wherever they were. On the way up the river to Yuchi every evening they insisted on stopping at some foul-smelling village, and it was difficult to induce them to spend the night away from a town.

The months which elapsed between this act of treachery and the spring of 1916, were filled with innumerable outrages. Many townships were completely devastated, either by the bandits or the Chinese soldiers. Little will ever be known of what actually took place under the guise of settling brigandage, behind the mountains which separate Yuchi from the outer world.

Far west in Northern China dwelt a barbarian people named the Yuchi, numerous and prosperous, yet no match in war for their persistent enemies the Tartars of the steppes. In the year 165 B.C. they were so utterly beaten in an invasion of the Heung-nou that they were forced to quit their homes and seek safety and freedom at a distance.

The pressure brought against them compelled the Hiongnou to give way, and as they were ousted from their possessions, to seek fresh homes further west. In this they were, no doubt, stimulated by the example of their old opponents, the Yuchi, but Panchow's energy supplied a still more convincing argument.

It is well that it should not be known. During the spring of 1916 a missionary visited Yuchi. Business called him outside the city wall and just beyond the west gate he saw the bodies of ten persons who had that day been executed. Among these were two children, brothers, the sons of a man who was reported to have "sold rice to the brigands."

In the last years of his reign the irrepressible Hun question again came up for discussion, and the episode of the flight of the Yuchi from Kansuh affords a break in the monotony of the struggle, and is the first instance of that western movement which brought the tribes of the Gobi Desert into Europe.