The next difficulty was transport. Horses had to be
watered, and if they were to be ready for use the train must stop and
the animals be exercised every fourth day. Hence much scheming and
management had to be exercised for the journey to be successfully
carried through.
I saw much about the "hidden hand" in the newspapers we received from
home, but our experiences of the same character were sometimes amusing
and sometimes serious. The railway was under a sort of joint control,
Russian, American and Japanese, and it soon became clear that one or the
other of these groups was unfriendly to our western advance. It may have
been all, but of that I have no proof. The first incident was a stop of
four hours. After the first two hours a train passed us that had been
following behind; after another two hours, when slightly more vigorous
inquiries were being made as to the cause of delay, we were quite
naively informed that the station-master did not think we ought to risk
going farther. We soon informed him to the contrary, and again started
forward. The next stop of this character was at a fairly big station
about twenty hours from Harbin. This station-master held us up for seven
hours. This I thought the limit. At last he showed my interpreter a
telegram asking him to prevent us going any farther. It was not signed,
and when I demanded that we should be allowed to proceed, he said that
there were no engines.
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