At the moment of these two leaving the camp the brigands were unaware of my departure but they must have discovered the flight almost immediately after, as by 10 a.m. that morning, August 13, they had arrived at the mission and. had taken Pere Degenéve prisoner, accusing him of complica ity in my escape. This, of course, was his first knowledge of the fact. When I saw Pere Degenéve some ten days later in Talifu he said that the brigands, especially the leaders, were furious at my escape and at once sent out about 200 of their members im various directions to scour the country side, and offered a reward of $200 for my recapture, dead or alive. On August 15 they struck camp and set out with their new prisoner for Szechuan, evidently having given up hope of getting their demands granted. Also, by this time, I suspect that they - were nervous of the large number of troops which were congregating in the region. On the ith, they came into the neighbourhood of some 300 soldiers of the "surrounding" force and in taking another route to escape a conflict they ran into another body of about 400 soldiers, on the 17th. The first party of soldiers, who had followed in pursuit, had no connexion with the.second lof and it was
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.