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great golden eagle, was flying high over the snows and rocks of the Altai Mountains. It was a brisk day in spring, that year 166o-an eventful year for Central Asia. Six feet from wing to wing, the golden eagle soared, alone and calmly bent on his own business.
    Rarely indeed was Bouragut to be tamed, to be hooded and shackled into a falcon, used by men to strike down prey. He went as he pleased, for he feared no one. Alone of the feathered folk he would sweep down, to attack with talons and curved beak foxes and even wolves. For that he was called the Wolf-Chaser, and men were proud to have him at their call.
    Unlike the vulture, the golden eagle did not wait for others to make his kill. His telescope-like eyes sought for game on the mountain slope, peering down between the cloud-flocks.
    He was Bouragut, the Wolf-Chaser; his brown, black-and-white-flecked coat of feathers glistened; his wings, moving lazily, supported him in the vastness where he had his kingdom by right.
    Yet it was not a king but an old falconer, a native Mongol and Christian, who had made himself master of Bouragut.
    From a thicket by the snow of the Urkhogaitu Pass, Aruk the hunter looked up, recognized the golden eagle, and waved cheerfully. He was a young Tatar with alert eyes. His hut was in the thicket, nearly two miles above the verdant plains of Tartary, to the north, because he was the keeper of the gate. It was his duty to watch for enemies coming over the pass from the south, where was the land of the Kalmuck and the Turk.
    Just now he was stringing his bow with fresh gut, in an excellent hu mor. That morning the omens on the mountainside had been good. A rainbow had come after dawn. Now the eagles were on the wing, and-yes; he cocked his head attentively-his horse neighed.
    All at once Aruk was on his feet, his bow strung. Up the pass another horse had neighed. Now the snow in the pass was still unbroken, for no riders had come over the Urkhogaitu-the Gate of the Winds-that winter, owing to the severe cold and the storms that swept the gorge between the rocky peaks of the Altai.
    Still, a horse had neighed, and where there was a horse in the Urkhogaitu, there was a rider. In a moment Aruk had mounted his shaggy pony-a Mongol of the plains will not move afoot if he can ride-and had drawn an arrow from the quiver at his saddle-peak.
    When he broke from a fringe of firs into the trail Aruk found himself facing a tall horseman. In fact, the horse-the Tatar's eye made swift note of this-was massive and long-bodied-a bay stallion. Aruk had never seen such a beast nor such a rider.
    The man who came down the pass had deep-set eyes under shaggy brows, eyes that held a fire of their own. Aruk's bow was lifted, the shaft taut on the string. A slight easing of the fingers would have sent the arrow into the throat of the stranger, above the fur-tipped cloak that covered his long body.
    The rider halted when he reached Aruk, but apparently for the purpose of looking out from the pass over the wide plain of Tartary, visible here for the first time from the pass-the plain speckled with brown herds and adorned with the deep blue of lakes, like jewels upon green cloth.
    Here and there below him were the tiny lines of animals that barely seemed to move, camels of the caravans that came from China to Muscovy.
    Under a close-trimmed mustache the thin lips of the stranger smiled, as if he made out a curious jest in the aspect of the sparkling plain.
    He looked at Aruk, and the hunter lowered his bow.
    "This one is a falcon," thought Aruk, taking counsel with himself. "May the -eat me though if he isn't a Frank."*
    In the minute just passed Aruk had seen that another Frank, one of the two servants who rode after the leader, had drawn a long pistol and pointed it at him. The hunter had no great respect for Turkish pistols, but it oc curred to him that the rider in front of him must be a personage of importance if others would fight to see that his path was