To return to the question of. the shooting: if there were no evidence one way or the other apart from the word of the actual participants, there are several strong presumptions against the statement that the foreigners fired. First of all there is reliable evidence to show that Mr. Sokobin had no weapon with him. Secondly he would have been wholly insane if he had fired on the soldiers whom he expected to repass after he had left the cars. He was not going to Urga nor to any great distance beyond the second barrier, so-called. He proposed to leave the ears when they were safely through and walk back. There were at least a dozen armed men quartered in! the guard house at this second inspection and Mr. Sokobin would have passed them on his return. It} ig therefore rather absurd to assume that he fired on them. In the} third place, half the foreign! population in North China will testify that if Mr. Coltman had fired three shots at the guard with his revolver at clo.e range, as the Chief of Staff asserts, he would have hit at. least\ one if not three because he was a remark-After a period of perhaps 24 hours ably fine shot and seldom failed to of doubt in Kalgan, the writer as- bring down running antelope from the fourth place, whatever the Chinese may have to say of Mr. Coltman's tendency to flourish firearms and his liking for wild-west pyrotechnics, it is to be assumed which was not in line but had drawn up some distance away. The soldiers, when the start was made, were on the left of the cars. Beside Mr. Coltman in his car sat a man named Chiang, a farmer from Urga on his way home. Immediately behind Mr. Coltman in the back seat sat a man named Li, an agent of a Kalgan bank, the Hsing Chi Yin Hao, also supposed to have had some money on the cars that having secured consular escort, of which the Chinese have as yet and protection he would have shown no evidence. Beside this Mr. Li on sufficient consideration for the con-the back seat was a heap of baggage sul whom he was going to send back and on the top of the back of the on foot and for his officio] standing car, with his legs over the baggage, in, the community to have refrain-sat Mr. Sokobin. ed from anything so provoking as i According to Mr. Coltman's gun play. chauffeur, he was cranking up his These are after al] nothing more fear for the start when a soldier than presumptions, however. There struck him in the shoulder with the is better evidence. On the four butt of his rifle and knocked him cars there were nine Chinese _pas-down on his hands and knees from sengers and two Chinese chauffeurs, which position he was just rising 11. Chinese witnesses in all when the firing started. He was With the exception of the two sure in his own mind that the for-chauffeurs, who were in foreign eigners did not fire and he saw the employ and might therefore be as-soldiers potting at Mr. Coltman's sumed by the Chinese to be pre-car and saw him shot but because judiced, thd others might safely be his position at the time of the said to be neutrals and therefore in opening of the fusillade he could a foreign court good witnesses, f not swear that the foreigners had these nine passengers two were in produced no weapons. Other testi-Mr. Wooden's car and like Mr. many proved that this man had not Wooden heard the firing but knew been struck by a soldier and had nothing of its character or conse-, not been on his hands and knees quences, After the first shot they jand when asked more minutely were naturally on the bottom of the bout what he saw he departed from car and saw nothing more. For s theme to remark that he was some reason these were the only two ithe sole support of seven, including witnesses, with the exception of his father, mother and uncle, all the chauffeurs, whom the Tutung jp Peking, and that having been in yamen took the trouble to examine. the yamen once he did not care to They were detained when Mr. go there again to testify but that Wooden returned the morning after he would tell the writer confidentithe incident and were persuaded _ally that the foreigners certainly to say that while they saw nothing did not shoot. He closed his state-they thought they had heard re-ment by begging for a chance to get volver shots before they heard the out of Kalgan. rifle shots. The ordinary Chinese
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.