A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, February 1950 — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

THE SMOKING LAND 95 thought that I would take back. For now we have passed through death, and this is a new life, perhaps, for thee and me!” A new life? I thought it was already the center of heaven, as at last we worked our way out into the open; and the dull Arctic sky, through which the clouds were scudding low, seemed to me more beautiful than the blue of paradise itself. CHAPTER 29 Fauna W: HAD an exhibition of the pow- er of the practical and scientific mind the minute we got outside. We looked at the ridge of pressure ice and saw that half of it, toward the place where we had found our shelter, had been blasted partly away, and was still covered with what looked like a dry crystal dust. That was a sufficient testimony of the power of those bombs. The sky showed none of the silver fish swimming through the air. When we made sure of that, Darrell said, ““We have three jobs ahead of us. The first one is to orient ourselves as well as we can. The second is to contrive some means of travel. The third is to make a start for home.” “Yes, either by flying, or by walking the waves, I suppose.” “We have to eat, first, and you’re the only experienced séal hunter in this outfit. I'll contribute matches and a primus stove.” He had, in fact, stuffed a number of the fur robes into what looked like tin, but was in reality a bit of good wrought iron, ee eake thin, I breathed a sigh of re- tef. It was forty hours and more since we had tasted food. I tightened my belt and started off at a brisk pace, making a round of the island. I went two miles to the end ‘ of it, and there I saw not one seal, but a herd of them—a whole half dozen on the ice and well in from the water! It seemed too good to be true, through I don’t suppose it was surprising that I should have found seals here on our ice island, seeing that there was no other ice in sight. However, to hunt even a sleeping seal is not the easiest trick in the world. A seal closes both eyes when he sleeps but you never can tell when he will open them and pop his head up and look around. So many of his ancestors haye wound up in the bellies of polar bears that the seal never gets bear-paws very far out of mind. Fear is bred into him. This constant rest- lessness as he sleeps is a hard thing for a hunter to get past. But there is a way of doing it. When you spot your seal, you can march right up to within about four hundred. ards of him. That’s as far as his big, un- ucky eyes can see. From that point on, you get down and crawl, and as you crawl, you time him. You may have a two-minute fellow, in which case you’re in luck, or more likely you have one that stays quiet only twenty or thirty seconds, But if you time his first nap, you know exactly how long he will take on all of his others, When he drops his head and shuts his eyes, you may crawl straight on toward him. But when it’s’ time for him to pop up and take notice again, you flatten yourself out on the ice and stay quiet. However, the time comes when you are so close that even a weak-eyed seal can see you quite clearly, and then your job becomes complicated. It’s not so bad if you're on ice, but it’s a tricky business when you're hunting a seal who is by a breathing hole. He’s probably lying only a few yards from the rim of it, and when you shoot, his own blood runs out and makes the ice slick and slippery, and there’s usually enough of a slope to make his body slide down into the sea. Many a one I’ve caught by a flipper as it disap- peared, only to have it glide out of my hand and disappear, sinking slowly down to gladden some killer whale. In order to get close, and very close, so you can run in with a few steps and finish off your seal, you have to play seal yourself. The seal has only two ideas. A moving object on the ice is either a bear or another seal. It is probably a bear if it is whitish in color. It is probably a seal if it is dark; but it must be further identi- fied by seal tricks. So you must strain your head upward when the seal is rolling a suspicious eye at you, and then you must roll on the ice, from time to time, or tie yourself into long.