revolutionists are ahead. They have captured the arsenal in Hanyang.
Three hundred of their soldiers went up to the gate with their clothes
torn and looking as if they had been in a battle. They pretended to be
the soldiers of the Emperor who had been defeated. The gate-keepers let
them in, and they took charge of the arsenal without firing a single
shot. Now the people are so sure the revolutionists will win that many
men have already cut off their queues. The soldiers with swords in
their hands demand that men prove they are loyal to the new republic by
having their queues cut off."
"If we could only get back to Hanyang again to get some warm clothes!"
sighed Jennie Cody. "I'm almost frozen without my winter coat."
"Let's try to go over with Dr. Huntley in the Red Cross launch,"
proposed Jennie Crawford. "None of the soldiers of either army will
fire at that."
When they reached Hanyang, they saw empty rickshaws along the river
bank and many other signs of a hasty retreat. Before they reached their
home, a man ran toward them.
"You must be ready to leave at a moment's notice," he cried. "The
soldiers of the Emperor have taken the city again."
In the dining-room the teacups still stood on the table, but they did
not stop to put them away. Hastily gathering a few garments, they
hurried back to the boat.
Before the boat could pull out, the bullets were falling close beside
them. Within half an hour a terrible battle was fought between the
troops of the Emperor on the Hankow side of the river and those of the
revolutionists on the other side. Nearer and nearer to the hospital
came the bullets. One day the two nurses were awakened by the sound
of shells directly over their heads. A bullet struck the wall of the
room. Jennie Cody picked it up and with a smile that showed she was
not afraid, put it away for a souvenir. The little Red Cross launches
brought in more and yet more wounded soldiers until the nurses could
scarcely step between the beds of straw. Again and again bullets fell
near by, but none struck the Americans.
"That is because the bullets were made by foreigners," explained the
Chinese. "They have eyes so they can see, and never hit the people who
made them."
After the troops of the Emperor had captured Hanyang, they took Hankow
and Wuchang. It seemed that the revolution had failed and that the
yellow flag with its Manchu dragon would still float above China.
"Look at that man!" said Jennie Crawford one day. "He cut off his queue
when he thought the revolutionists had won. Then when the soldiers of
the Emperor recaptured the city, he was afraid they would cut off his
head if they saw him without a queue, and he pinned one to his cap."
"Many men have done that," answered Jennie Cody. "When they think
the soldiers of the Emperor are going to win, they let their queues
hang down their backs; then if they think victory is going to the
revolutionists, they tuck them up under their caps."
"The days may seem dark for the new republic, but even though the
arsenal has been captured by the soldiers of the Emperor, good news
comes from Shanghai and Nanking," said Jennie Crawford. "Everywhere the
people are demanding that China shall be free. Shanghai has been taken
by the revolutionists without any fighting and Nanking has already been
made the capital of the new government."
Jennie Crawford's prophecy came true. When in 1912 New Year's Day came
to China,—this time on January first by law,—Mr. Sun Yat-Sen was
inaugurated as the first president of the great Chinghwa (Chinese)
Republic, and the dragon flag came down. Instead, there floated a
rainbow flag with stripes of five colors to represent the five peoples
of China. There was a red stripe for the Chinese, a blue stripe for the
Mongols, a white stripe for the Mohammedans, and a black stripe for
the Tibetans. Instead of killing all the Manchu soldiers and the boy
emperor, the new republic put a fifth stripe of yellow in its flag for
the Manchu people who were to be a part of the new republic.
When the news reached the two nurses, Miss Crawford said to Miss Cody,
"Now I can get back to my own hospital in Hanyang, to all the women and
children who are waiting for me." But for many weeks they stayed to
nurse the men who could not be moved.
One day they received a command from General Li Yuan Hung,
vice-president of the new republic, to come to Wuchang, which was
thronged with people from many nations, England, France, America,
Germany, Russia, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. There the Vice-President
presented to them bronze medals "in recognition of their bravery and
self-sacrifice, in caring for the wounded during the revolution."
"I have almost forgotten the noise of battle and those days in the
hospital," said Jennie Crawford as they went back to Hanyang. "But I
can never forget that Chinese soldier who looked up at us one night as
we tried to ease his pain, and said, 'You are like God to us.'
"'Oh, no,' I answered at once.
"'Well,' said he, as I smoothed his pillow of straw, 'you are the ones
who make us know about God.'
"Now I can answer you that I'm still glad I came to China."
VIII
SIXTY-SIX DAYS WITH BANDITS
On a cold November morning a group of girls stood beside two mules in
front of a house in Batang on the border of Tibet. Two were Americans,
and the others, Tibetans.
"How long must you stay in America, Doris?" asked one of the Tibetan
girls very sadly.
"If I study hard every day," answered Doris, "I can come back in ten
years."
"That's not so bad," said another of the girls, "because, you see, if
you will study night and day, you can get through and come back in five
years."
"We must go," said Dorothy. "Father and Mother have gone on a half-hour
ago."
There were tears in all eyes as Doris and Dorothy sprang into their
saddles.
"Good-by! Good-by!" they called as the mules started forward.
Since they were babies, Doris and Dorothy Shelton had lived in Tibet,
the land that is called "the roof of the world," because it is higher
than any other country in the world. They had taken many trips,
clinging to the backs of their mules as they went almost straight
up on the rough mountain roads, but the journey on which they were
starting now, as the sun rose from behind the snow-capped mountains,
was to be the most thrilling of all.
[Illustration: THE SHELTON FAMILY CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS OF TIBET
Mrs. Shelton and the girls are in the chairs carried by barefoot
coolies.]
They soon overtook their mother and father and the servants. In front
of the party rode guards, for the country was full of robber bands.
Then came six mule drivers driving the twenty-five mules that were
loaded with tents, baggage, and food. Following the mule drivers Mrs.
Shelton rode in a sedan chair fastened to two poles which rested on
the shoulders of four carriers who wore fine, bright-red turbans and
long robes of grey _pulu_ or wool, which were tied about the waist. In
the party were Andru, Drashi, and Shen-si, the three servants who had
helped to care for Doris and Dorothy since they were babies.
Last of all, on a mule strong enough to carry his two hundred and
thirty pounds, rode Dr. Albert Shelton. Everyone in Batang knew "Big
Doctor Shelton," and everyone loved him.
Seventeen years before this time, when he left the medical school in
Kansas, he looked over a map of the world to find the place that needed
a doctor most. There was not a town in Kansas that did not have a
doctor in it or near to it, and in some of the towns there were many
doctors.
"I should like to go to a place where there are no other doctors," he
said.
"Well, then," said a friend, "go to Tibet. That is the place for
you, because in all Tibet there is no doctor. But you may not get
there alive. The Dalai Lama, who is the head of everything in Tibet,
government and Buddhist Church, lives in Lhasa, the capital, and he
will not let any Christian missionary or doctor come within the walls
of his city. Some have tried to go, but most of them were killed."
The more Albert Shelton thought about the land without a doctor, the
more he wished to go there. He talked to his young wife, and she wanted
to go, too, so one day they took a steamer from San Francisco and
crossed the Pacific Ocean to China where a boat carried them a thousand
miles up the Yangtze River. Then they went still farther on a little
Chinese house-boat pulled by thirty men who walked along the bank.
After the house-boat had gone up the river for nearly two months, they
stepped off on shore and rode on the backs of mules for seven hundred
miles.
More than a year after they left Kansas, they reached the town of
Tatsienlu on the border of Tibet. If they could have stuck a pin eight
thousand miles long right through the earth, it would have come out not
far from where they started. The nearest doctor was seven hundred miles
away, so Dr. Shelton decided to live in Tatsienlu until he could find a
way to get farther into the closed land of Tibet.
Doris and Dorothy were born at Tatsienlu, among mountains that rose
more than twenty thousand feet above the level of the ocean, so high
that they were covered with snow in July and August. They were used
to the strange little "yaks,"—houses covered with goat's hair. They
watched their father make brick and saw lumber and teach the men how to
build houses like the one he had built for himself.
After five years Dr. Shelton was permitted to go farther inland to
Batang to start a hospital. When the people heard of the "good doctor"
who had come so far across the ocean, and who could do such wonderful
things to make sick people well, they came from all over the country
to see him. At first he had to use for his operating table a door laid
across two tables. Then he and his friends sawed lumber and baked
brick and built a hospital. For ten years he lived at Batang, and many
thousands of people came there to be helped.
[Illustration: DR. SHELTON TREATING A TIBETAN BOY
He ministered to all who needed him despite the lack of a hospital.
This treatment is being given on a house top.]
Then a wonderful thing happened—Dr. Shelton was to go into Lhasa, the
capital of the land-without-a-doctor. The Dalai Lama had kept out all
missionaries because he was afraid the people would discover that their
idols were not true gods and would not give the priests any more money.
But now the Dalai Lama himself gave Dr. Shelton permission to come.
Before going to Lhasa Dr. Shelton planned to take Mrs. Shelton and
Doris and Dorothy to the port of Hongkong, from which they were to
sail to America, where the girls were to go to school. It was on this
journey that they were starting on this November morning.
Mrs. Shelton did not want to say good-by to the people of Batang,
whom she loved, so she tried to slip away before daybreak. But as she
and the doctor rode along, they found people lined up on either side
of the road to bid them good-by. Many had left their homes the night
before and had marched ahead so they could stand by the road and see
their "big doctor" and his wife and children once more. An escort of
twenty-five boys had been sent ahead. All the way from Batang to the
Yangtze River, a journey of a day and a half, the people were gathered
along the roadside.
For thirty-six days Doris and Dorothy rode on their mules. Then they
were so tired, their father got chairs for them and they were carried
by the servants.
One day as they were riding along, Dorothy said:
"Are you afraid of robbers, Doris? I heard Andru and Shen-si say that
Yang Tien-fu, the leader of a dreadful band must be near by. He is very
angry at the government. He used to be a colonel in the Chinese army,
but they didn't pay his salary, so he got a band of men to join him,
and they live out in the mountains. Andru said they stop all travelers
and take pay from them."
"I'm not afraid," said Doris. "We have soldiers to guard us."
"I'm glad we are almost at Yunnanfu. Forty-seven days is a long time to
ride. Father says we will be at Yunnanfu in just two and a half days."
Suddenly, as the mules came out from behind a bend in the road, they
threw back their ears and stopped. The report of a pistol rang out.
"Robbers! Robbers!" shouted the soldiers.
Another pistol shot followed, and the robbers sprang down through the
brush of the mountainside. There was a crashing of glass, as a bullet
struck the thermos bottle by Mrs. Shelton's side.
"Robbers! Robbers!" shouted the four soldiers again. One shot off his
gun; then all four ran back to the village.
Mrs. Shelton and the girls crept out of their chairs and slipped over
the bank into the ditch below.
Bullets flew. The bandits surrounded Dr. Shelton; one drew a large
pistol and another a great sword. Dr. Shelton saw there was no chance
to escape, so he let them take from him his field-glasses, his camera,
and everything else they wanted. Andru was seized and his knife and
chop-sticks taken from his belt. Holding up Dr. Shelton by both arms,
two of the bandits led him up the mountain to their chief. The others
tried to get Mrs. Shelton to climb the bluff which rose straight before
them, but she was not able. Then they tried to carry her, but they
could not get up the steep, narrow path with a load.
Doris wore gloves, but little Dorothy's hands were bare. The robbers
saw her rings and took them off her fingers. Dorothy loved those rings
which had been given to her by her friends, and she began to cry. Doris
had been very much frightened by the robbers, but when she saw one of
them with Dorothy's rings, she forgot about herself and going up to the
robber said:
"You give those rings back to Dorothy!"
The robber smiled at the girl who was so brave for her little sister
and actually handed the rings back.
By this time the soldiers returned with other soldiers and rushed out
to attack the robbers, who left Mrs. Shelton and Doris and Dorothy and
began fighting to defend themselves. At once the two girls with their
mother and the servants slipped back to the village.
Meanwhile Dr. Shelton was being hurried along up the mountainside to
the robber chief. Taller and stronger than any of the men who stood
about him was Yang Tien-fu. He looked with interest at the things his
men had taken from the travelers and examined Dr. Shelton's camera and
field-glasses.
"How can this picture-box make pictures?" he asked. "Now stop and make
my picture."
Dr. Shelton snapped the kodak.
"Now take my picture out of the box and let me see it."
"There is no picture there yet," said Dr. Shelton.
Yang Tien-fu would not believe him and made him open the camera and
spoil the first picture of a robber chief he had ever had a chance to
take.
Dr. Shelton could look down to the valley and watch the battle between
the bandits and the soldiers. He saw Mrs. Shelton's empty chair.
"Why do you want to take me as a prisoner?" he asked.
"Because I must have money," answered the bandit.
"I have no money," said Dr. Shelton.
"But your people will offer me a ransom. I have plenty of soldiers
in my land, but they have little to fight with. I will tell your
people that if they will send me fifty thousand dollars' worth of guns
and powder and bullets I will release you. And that is not all. The
government has taken my family and is keeping them as prisoners. I will
tell them that if they will send my family back to me, I will send you
back to them. Get on your mule, for we must travel far from here."
Over the rough, steep road of the mountain they rode for many hours.
Not until the sun went down did they stop to rest and to wait for their
companions. They built a fire and cooked rice. After they had eaten,
they took out their long pipes and smoked opium. Dr. Shelton counted
seventy-one men.
When those who had stayed to fight the soldiers overtook the band,
Dr. Shelton saw that one man was shot through the ankle. He opened
his saddle-bags and dressed the wound while Yang Tien-fu watched with
interest. After resting a few hours they started to travel again.
For three days and nights Dr. Shelton did not take off his clothes or
sleep. Sometimes he lay down on an old horse blanket, the only bed he
had. Four robbers guarded him. They never took off the belts in which
they carried their guns and cartridges. Dr. Shelton counted nineteen
different kinds of guns and eight kinds of pistols, all of which had
been taken from travelers.
Day after day the bandits traveled over the mountains. When they
stopped, forty guards were sent in every direction, for Yang Tien-fu
knew that the government had offered a reward of five thousand dollars
to anyone who would capture him dead or alive.
Sometimes he divided his men, sending a party to march straight down
over the steep mountainside to make a false trail, and often he stood
on some high bluff and laughed as he watched the soldiers being led
astray. Almost every day, and sometimes many times a day, the bandits
would stop a company of travelers and take their money or go into a
little village and rob the frightened people.
If the villagers gave them what they asked for, there was no fighting.
Yang Tien-fu would go into the temple, which was the meeting place of
the people, and send his men out to find one of the head men of the
village. When he came in, the chief would say:
"We are not robbers. We are traveling to escort this great foreign
official. He must have two hogs and ten bushels of rice."
Then the head men would look at Dr. Shelton with great respect and
interest and start off to get all the things the great foreign official
must have. Meanwhile Dr. Shelton tried to get them to understand that
he was a prisoner. Often he had to smile at the cunning of the robber
chief.
As they went along, Dr. Shelton saw many people who were sick and many
whose eyes were sore or blind. He said to Yang Tien-fu, "I left America
to help the sick people in Tibet. Since you are keeping me away from my
hospital in Batang, you must let me have a hospital along the road."
So the chief waited while the doctor healed the sick. Many soldiers
joined the band, and the doctor ministered to all who needed him.
One day the chief said, "You are an honest man. I want you to be one of
my men and stay with us. These other fellows can't be trusted. Even our
treasurer steals. Stay with us and be the pastor and the doctor for me
and my men. I will pay you twelve thousand dollars a year and give you
half of it right now."
Dr. Shelton chuckled. He wondered whether anyone else had ever been
invited to be the pastor of a robber band.
Back in Yunnanfu Mrs. Shelton, Doris, and Dorothy waited. Every day the
girls went to the gate of the city, hoping to see a runner coming with
a message from their father.
"But, Doris," said Dorothy, "there is no chance for Father to escape.
He is guarded all the time."
"The Bible says that Paul and Silas were sleeping right between guards,
and God opened the doors of the prison," said Doris. "If we pray, God
may open some door so Father can escape."
Thus while the robber band was climbing the steep mountain and leading
their tired prisoner farther and farther away, two little girls knelt
down to pray.
For nearly three weeks no message came.
"If we could only know if Father is still living and if he is well!"
said Mrs. Shelton.
"Yes," said Doris. "Or if we could get a message to him so he could
know we are praying for him!"
One day Shen-si, the Chinese cook who had lived with them many years,
said:
"I will carry your message to my master and bring his message to you."
"How can you find him, Shen-si?" asked Dorothy. "How will you get past
the chief of the bandits?"
"I will face Yang Tien-fu and carry your message to my master and bring
his message to you," said Shen-si quietly.
Mrs. Shelton and the girls wrote letters and Shen-si started out to
find his master. All along the way he followed the robbers, asking
questions until he reached the place where he was told his master was.
He went boldly up to the guards.
"I come on important business," he announced. "I must speak to your
chief."
The guards led him to Yang Tien-fu. Behind the chief he saw his master,
so changed that he scarcely knew him. A long beard had grown over his
smooth face, and he was so weak he could scarcely walk. Tears came into
Shen-si's eyes.
Dr. Shelton was allowed to send a message back, and he handed Shen-si
a copy of _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_ to take to Mrs. Shelton. This
he had had in his saddle-bags when the robbers captured him. On the
margins he had written daily messages to his wife. One of the last was:
"I am tired to death; all I can say in my desolation is, 'Make Thy
grace sufficient for me, O God.'"
With the precious book Shen-si started back.
[Illustration: A ROADSIDE LUNCHEON IN TIBET
Dr. Shelton and his daughters at luncheon with a group of Tibetan
friends.]
Shen-si was not the only one who had determined to reach Dr. Shelton.
One day Yang Tien-fu said to his prisoner:
"The government has sent a messenger to me to say that my family is at
the priest's house and that if I will send you there in exchange, my
family will be given to me. I am almost afraid to trust them, for they
do not keep their word as you do, but I am going to send you to the
priest's house with a strong guard."
Twenty of the robbers took Dr. Shelton to the priest's house. There
Yang Tien-fu found only his wife and mother.
"What do two women amount to?" he said angrily. "I can buy another wife
as good as that one for a hundred dollars any time. Have them bring me
my son."
A contract was prepared promising Yang Tien-fu that if he would release
Dr. Shelton, the Chinese government would give him pardon for himself
and his men, make him an officer in the army, return all his family to
him and give him the arms and ammunition for which he had asked. On
the next day the contract was to be signed by him and by the Chinese
governor.
Late at night some of the men, who had been out watching, hurried to
the chief.
"The government has you in a trap," they said, "many troops of
soldiers are stealing in quietly to surround you and capture you."
Quickly Yang Tien-fu took both his family and Dr. Shelton, and at
midnight they slipped out between the circles of soldiers, back to the
mountains. Again began the long, hard journeys. Soon Yang Tien-fu saw
that his prisoner was too weak to walk or even to sit on his mule, so
he had a rough chair made for him. For thirty-seven hours they carried
him, running as fast as they could, for the soldiers were following.
One day the chief said:
"The doctor is so sick and weak he can go no farther. Take him to the
loft of that barn and hide him in the straw. Place four guards with
him. If he dies, hide his body where no one will find it; if he gets
well, send a messenger to me, and I will come for him."
The men made a tunnel through the rice-straw to the back of the loft,
digging out a space large enough for a bed for the doctor at the end.
They took a brick out of the wall to make a small hole for a window. As
they dragged their sick prisoner into his straw house, one of them said:
"The 'big doctor' is the same as a dead man."
The newspapers all over the world had printed the story of Dr.
Shelton's capture by the robbers, and day by day people in many lands
waited to hear that the governor and his soldiers had caught Yang
Tien-fu and released Dr. Shelton. One day the American Minister at
Peking started a rescue party of several English and Americans with
troops. They sent a message to Yang Tien-fu demanding the release of
Dr. Shelton; then they started into the mountains to find him. When
they left, Doris and Dorothy went with them to the gate of the city.
Meanwhile the "big doctor," almost too weak to move, was lying on his
bed of straw, with his head by the little window.
"Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,"—he counted the days as
they went by.
An old Chinese man brought him rice, and the rest and food made him
feel so much better that the men who were guarding him slipped off
to tell the chief he was not dead, leaving the Chinese to guard him.
Late one afternoon the old man cried out in terror, "The soldiers are
coming!" and ran as fast as he could.
Dr. Shelton crawled to the street and called to the Chinese runner who
had so frightened his guard. The villagers had heard the cries, "The
soldiers are coming!" and had run to the hills. When the messenger
found out that the man who stood before him was the "big doctor," he
was almost as frightened as the villagers.