A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, February 1950 — page 33: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SMOKING LAND tapering knife blade with his thumb and forefinger, and let it jerk free and vibrate with a saspish hum: “There’s no other piece of wood like this one, except the bit in the Smithson- ian. There’s no other bit of steel like this, either. Not in the entire world. I know something about metallurgy. No place, that is to say, except perhaps in your Smoking Land.” “You don’t believe in such a place?” said I. “Disbelief and belief, I try to rule out of my mind,” said Scanderov. “However,” said I, “now I'll listen to your part of the bargain. How am I to go get to the Ice Pole? What do you think is the best procedure?” “Take dogs and travel,” said Scan- derov. I controlled my temper. “I want special information, about the journey,” said I. “How am I to try to make it?” “With luck,” said Scanderov. That got me fighting mad, but after all, he was a gentleman and did live up to our agreement. He simply meant that he con- sidered the journey impossible, even for himself; how, then, could a crude new hand like me accomplish anything? That was logical, on his part. But beyond that point of logic, he went on to tell me every- thing that he could. He did not spare any detail. In the first place, he chilled my blood by saying that I would have to travel alone, for the good reason that I should never be able to get anyone to go with me. In the second place, he told me just what my out- fit should consist of, and he broached the idea with which Stefansson had startled the world some time back—that a man with a good rifle and a touch of skill never need to starve when he’s on Arctic ice. For there is plenty of life in that water to support whole shoals of fish, and the fish support wide-scattered armies of seals, and wherever seals hunt, they have to come to the ice holes to breathe and be killed, or lie on the ice basking—and be killed. That, in short, was the plan which Scanderov evolved for me: a rifle, a light sled-boat, ammunition, and luck! And then. perhaps if by a miracle- I survived— the Ice Pole. tions. 33 CHAPTER 9 Sea Journey ROM the first, Scanderov told me BH iva I was, plainly, a fool. He said that a picked crew of about five men, and perhaps thirty of the finest dogs, per- fect equipment, and so one would have one chance in twenty of reaching the goal; or of making a safe return. One man alone could never turn the trick. “Well, so far as I know,” I said, ‘‘one man made the trip from the Smoking Land to Alaska. So one man ought to be able to return.” He looked at me and said nothing, but his eyes were considering me gravely. Then he remarked, “I’m not sorry for fellows like you. You get a lifetime of fun out of the craziest sort of an adventure, and the fun lasts up to the death struggle. So what’s the loss to you? When I say that one man has no chance I simply mean —well, a sprained ankle can make a whole party of seven or eight limp; but a sprained ankle is death to a single man.”’ “T won't sprain my ankle, then.” He grinned at me with real friendship. And he argued no more, but gave me all the help he could. I contributed one idea of my own. I was to be single-handed ; and therefore I might as well work with a single dog, and a one- dog sled-boat! It would save trouble in the care of the dogs, it would save am- munition that would otherwise be used up in shooting food for the animals. And I had in Murder a dog as strong as three, with an instinct for all northern difficulties of the trail. Scanderov thought it might be difficult to work out a sled-boat light enough to handle and yet big enough to hold a man and a dog. But we proved that the thing could be done. I spent a solid month making prepara- Everything was worked out by hand; I don’t think that I took with mea single ready-made article except a rifle and the ammunition for it. That was one place where I had to be extravagant, for as Scanderov said, it would be easy to starve without bullets for the gun; where- as if I were overloaded, I could simply throw away a part of the load at any time. COMmicooo <S) C@