It began to look as though one of two serious events would happen, the fall of Sianfu or an escape of the raiders into Szechuan. When San-yuan hsien, due north of Sianfu, was captured, anxiety increased very considerably. For the first time since the commencement of the raid Peking's military commanders began to display real energy. Troops from Szechuan cooperate with those from the north managed gradually to head the Wolf off northwest and on April 24 it was reported that he had been defeated at Pinchow and five days later that he had crossed the Shensi border, in the neighbourhood of Lungchow, into Kansu. There was general relief at the news and Peking began confidently to assert that the great raider was cornered at last. On June 3, however, Peking telegrams stated that the cordon, real or imaginary, which surrounded him had been broken through and that both Minchow and Taochow had been sacked.
The fact that our Tsinchow correspondent, writing on June 2, gave March 20 as the date on which the looting of Minchow took pi shows how unsatisfactory informa-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.