Adventure Magazine Cover — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

THE WOLF MASTER 35 ‘CHAPTER IX When there is a black smoke ahead, the fool rides on the trail rejoicing; the coward turns back, but the wise man leaves the road and watches all things attentively. MONGOL PROVERB HE first day out of Kolumna, Waa| Kirdy and Nada covered seventy miles, for the horses were fresh #} and shod against frost with The light sleigh slipped over the cleats. hard snow like a feather, and Tatikof’s big stallion kept up gamely. He was a Podo- lian breed, up to the Turkish racers in speed, and indifferent to cold. But Toghrul—who had plastered his cuts with mud and thought no more of them— observed the brown charger shrewdly when they halted that evening, off the trail, and remarked to Kirdy that they could not take the Podolian after the forage had given out. Inthe open steppe, only native-breds, trained to dig under the snow for grass and moss, could survive. “Why do you say the open steppe?” Kirdy asked, looking up from grooming down the charger. ‘God grant that we overtake Otrépiev before leaving the river!’ The trail for that day had followed the frozen bed of the little Okka, running through forests for the most part. They had passed two or three small villages where they had been told that Otrépiev’s party had passed on, to the east. “A falcon is swifter in its stoop than the great golden eagle,”’ responded the old man after a moment, ‘‘but the eagle is not easily tired. Bak Allah! We have six ponies; they have twenty. By changing saddles they can avoid pursuit.” “Canst thou follow the slot of their sledge?” “Not here. There be too many tracks that come and go. Out on the steppe it is different.”’ Kirdy was silent while the two men cooked the supper, and not until the fire had been replenished and Nada had settled herself by it in a white bearskin did he speak. “There must be talk between us. road do you take?” ‘Whither goest thou?’ the kite asks of the wind. Nay, ouchar, since you ran from my house with halberdiers tumbling all over you, like marionettes, you have given orders What tomy men. You lingered to play with the taverner at Kolumna—aye and the priest, and it is no fault of yours that the boyare did not ride up then and take us.” She laughed softly, pulling the paws of the bear- skin over her slender shoulders. “And now after two days and two nights you frown and ask the road of me!” Kirdy kneeled beside her on his saddle cloth. Until now he had asked no questions of Nada—why she wore the garments of a Cossack—why she was fleeing to the east. “T am no longer an ouchar—a fledgling,” he responded, in his slow drawl. ‘Once the Cossack brothers gave me a name. They gave me also work to do, and that is why I issued commands to your men.” “Did the sir brothers bid you go to my house, when it was surrounded by foes?” “Nay, my horses were there—I had thought so. Besides, you might have been there and Tatikof sought you with no gentle hand.” “Oh, it is clear tome now.” Nada smiled, unseen. “You are a true Cossack, White Falcon. First you think of horses, then of the divchina, the maiden.”’ Kirdy pushed the ends of the branches into the fire. He found it difficult to choose words in talking to Nada. It was not easy to tell when she was making fun of him. Besides, he had never seen such a splendid girl before. After two days on the snow road her cheeks, that had been pallid in the town, glowed softly. A light was in her eyes, and her small lips were dark with pulsing blood. In the glow of the fire and the wan radiance of the full moon that had risen over the tree crest her head and hair were beautiful. Even while she spoke to him she seemed to be listening to the sounds of the forest— to the snapping of wood under the growing cold, to the tinkle of ice falling on the snow crust, and the tiny scraping of an animal’s claws somewhere in the darkness. He wondered why she was more lovely in Cossack dress than in the sarafan of a bo- yarenya. ‘When you drove into the street with the horses, Nada, you gave me my life. The boyare had penned me. Until death, I swear gratitude to you.” “Will you serve me?” “In what way?” Nada tossed her head scornfully. “Kai, the Cossack hero is generous! He cCoOmiclbooks C©