Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 140: what you’re looking at

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

incredible an expanse of snowy tundra that his eyes ached at the effort of encompassing ail at one glance. Clumps of plain grass stretched before him, growing tiny in the vast distances of the snowy prairie. Striker sat down in the snow, breathing deeply. He unshipped his pack and pulled out one of the trek-charts his scholarly friend had drawn for him. With a red pencil he marked a deliberate X in the very center of the pass indicated on the map. Underneath him, he knew, was a cairn buried by previous adventurers. They had gone about a hundred miles farther and turned back, broken in mind and body. Blame it on the weather, he thought. If the cool, dry wind kept up he was fairly safe; he might even make it to Bolama in two more days, using every glissading trick and braker he knew. And if one of the prairie blizzards swept down on him, it might take longer. Or he might never get there at all. Wearily, Striker rose again and started down, his feet plunging deeply in the snow. He rubbed his eyes as specks on the bleak tundra swirled before him. Hastily, knowing from three Himalayan expeditions how swiftly and terribly snow-blindness could come, he fumbled for his dark glasses, Snapped them on his head. But the spots were still there. They were too large to be men and moved too swiftly. Could they be mounted riders, he wondered. He had heard something of the sort about the aborigines of this land. Deliberately, he sat in the snow to wait. The moving figures grew larger. He could see that they were riders: short, dark men on wry little canine-type animals. He lit one of the cigars to which he had become accustomed as the figures approached. “Hello, friends!” he called out across the snow. They did not understand. Drawing rein they unshipped from their Shoulders bows of laminated horn, raising them against him. With a start he whipped the airgun from his belt. Three times the flat crash of the weapon sounded. He had aimed CORniclooo SS (SO)