Adventure Magazine Cover — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

THE WOLF MASTER 39 Toghrul drove as if possessed, swaying on his seat, singing to the three black heads and the manes that tossed like surf under the beat of the wind. The kabardas sped as if: possessed by devils—or as if scenting their stables—over long ridges and the black beds of streams without sign of a road. Kirdy’s charger gathered himself together and did his brute best to follow. The other man and the two mustangs were left far behind. ““Come!”’ Nada’s clear voice came back to him. “O Kazak, do you fear this road?” The road, to be sure, was unprepossessing. Winding through barren uplands, it dipped among a nest of rock gullies where the charger stumbled and came up blindly. The gray sky pressed lower, and the sleigh was beyond sight; only the tinkling of the bells was to be heard. This ceased, and when the wind blew from her direction Kirdy caught the girl’s voice lifted in song that mocked the oncoming storm. A somber twilight fell, while Kirdy plied his whip, and watched the landmarks on either hand. It seemed to him that they were descending sharply. Soon whirling flakes, heavy and damp, shut out every- thing except the horse and the trail. He reined in the charger to listen, and to look for Karai. By the rock walls, rising in pinnacles and mounds on both flanks, he judged they were entering one of the long ravines that break the even surface of the steppe. Yellow eyes glared at him from a bend in the trail, and he snatched at the sword be- fore he was certain from the behavior of the horse that it was Karai and not a wolf that waited his coming. The dog, contrary to his usual custom, pressed close to the charger’s legs, his hair stiff on shoulders and neck, and his fangs a-gleam. Wind devils whined above his head, the towers of black granite closed in on him and the drifting flakes stung face and hands. The charger snorted and edged cautiously between two boulders. The storm had set in, and all trace of the sleigh was lost. Nothing was to be seen, but Kirdy rode on stubbornly, sure that there could be no other way. He had the feeling of coming out into an open valley, when Karai bounded forward, and he be- held two eyes of light in the distance. A few paces more and he saw the glow of win- dows upon the falling snow, and the black mass of a log cabin. RDY dismounted and knocked with numb fingers on the door. Then he stepped aside, because he was now across the river and it is not well to venture out of darkness into sudden light in the steppe, where Asia begins. “At Kazak! Do you fear because you have come to the Wolf’s Throat?” Nada’s voice from within challenged him, and he strode to the charger, leading him around the cottage to the lean-to that served as stable. When the saddle was off and the horse was blanketed, he entered the cottage, stooping under the lintel. By the white-tiled stove sat an old man, shielding a candle from the blast of air that swept through the open door. He rose, leaning on a staff and peered at the young warrior. “Chlieb sol,” he said, and bowed. bread and salt is yours.” Once he must have been as tall as Kirdy, because he bent over, resting heavily on his stick. He moved stiffly, in his Turkish robes, but his boots and shirt were of Cos- sack make. Though his face was lined and his long hair gray around the forehead, he had the clear and alert eyes of middle age. What held Kirdy’s silent attention was the man’s head-gear—a white wolfskin, with a great broad head overhanging his brow. The white muzzle with the long fangs surely had belonged to a monarch of the wolf-folk. - “Omelko am I,” vouchsafed his host, “and it is a day of days that brings to my choutar a hero of the Cossacks.” “Health to you,” responded Kirdy. “Rest I would have and meat and forage for the horse. My road is far to the end.” Omelko hobbled to the stove and filled a long horn with hot brandy, offering it to his guest. Kirdy took it, and spilled a few drops to the four quarters of the winds, and lifted it. “Hat, brattki kozdki—to the Cossack brothers! To the heroes of other days.” “Glory to God, young warrior.” “For the ages of ages!” Kirdy emptied the horn—not to do so would have been an insult to his host, and the blood warmed in his chilled limbs. Al- though he had never heard of a Cossack living beyond the river, he felt sure that this man was Cossack-born. If so he was as safe within the four walls of the choutar as in the barracks of the Siech. He unslung “My COmiclbooks.€© 5}