Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 148: what you’re looking at

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

® . a“ ; id = ont Bio) 1. hk Me SL ‘ ; : : iF : A ‘ ’ Ne \ wr he VASES 28 At 7a wa ~f - | eke Poe» Oe Ves BAey yy f ivi _ BAe 3 > a | 146 with great appreciation. He was the last to retire to shelter from the cold. The evening had been an eventful one. Maak would have enough to think about all Winter. He had been entertained by a trader. It was long. after Maak had disappeared that Orani came out of his tent and moved silently off into the dark. An hour later the half-breed returned, and sought his blankets. The camp by the stream was motionless except for the anxious movements of a big reindeer and the illusion of motion produced by the play of the northern fires in the sky. * glimpse of Qoren V airgin, the king of the spirit-world who drives the sun across the sky behind flying, white reindeer. Heavy clouds, settling athwart the snow- peaks of the Syansk, hid the sun. “Snow is coming in the valley,” muttered the Mongol servant to Orani. Thoughtfully the half-breed nodded but made no move to rise from his blankets by the fire. The reindeer-keeper also had noted the signs in the sky. He lingered for a while hopitig to see the departure of the trader, he even ventured to offer Petrovan some tobacco. THE next morning they had no ~ “Pah!” the trader grunted to Orani. “IT would rather smoke dried horse-drop- pings. These mountain men are mongrels.” Orani’s slant eyes narrowed and his hand went instinctively to his knife. When Petrovan had traded or gambled in a bad streak of luck the Siberian was accustomed to slur Orani’s mixed parentage. “They are no better, excellency,” he retorted, “than the overfed hounds that lie in the ditches of Irkutsk.” More than once Petrovan had been carried out of these same ditches when drunk, Orani did not touch his for he saw the other’s eyes on him sidewise and knew that Petrovan’s heavy pistol was in his belt. The Siberian shrugged and fell to watching Maak, who had mounted the white buck and was mustering his herd. Two beasts were missing—young bucks that often strayed. Maak was anxious to work down into the larch and beech forests before the snow came, and he set out in search of the two reindeer. He cast up the mountainside to the edge of the snow-line without finding reindeer or Adventure tracks. Then he circled down, looking into the gullies where moss-beds might have tempted his pets. Maak knew his charges as a shepherd knows his sheep. Reindeer were in fact very much like sheep. When ‘he had searched vainly for two hours Maak headed back to camp expecting that the missing animals would have re- turned to the herd. Glancing into a ravine giving into the river, he stiffened in his saddle. Below him lay the young reindeer, their throats cut. Maak bent over them and saw that they had been dead for many hours. He looked for the place where steaks might have been cut from the. haunches. A puzzled glare came into his black eyes. His first thought had been that the Mon- gol servant-or Orani had butchered the half- tame animals to get the meat he had re- fused to sell. But no meat had been taken from the carcasses. Only the throats had been cut. Suddenly Maak grunted and climbed into the small saddle on the shoulders of the stal- wart white buck. He raced the short dis- tance into camp, and found that there was no longer a.camp. Even his skin tent had been kicked down and thrown on the fire. Men, horses and reindeer herd had disap- peared. Maak was a figure turned to stone. He was thinking out the thing slowly. Some one had killed his two animals— some one who knew that he would search for them, perhaps for hours, and leave the herd unwatched. He trotted around the ashes of the fire, found the trail that led north along the stream. The ground was frozen, but here and there patches of fern and bracken told © him what he wanted to know. His herd had been driven off, bunched, followed by horses. Petrovan had taken his reindeer. The thought stung Maak into action. The vacant stare hardened in his eyes and his hands clenched. With worried, anxious movements he urged the white reindeer after the herd. He was angry, puzzled. Why had the trader tried to steal his herd? The Siberian had more than an hour’s start, yet Maak knew that he would be up with the fugitives before noon, so swiftly did his white beast eat up distance. Then, of course, Petrovan must give him back his reindeer. What else could be done? (6) JOOKS: CO SS