Adventure Magazine Cover — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

50 and fitted on the wheels that had been lashed to the sides. So he was glad that he had found the camp site, after a week’s careful search of the river’s edge for that very thing. Only a tribesman or a steppe-bred Cossack would have discovered it and learned from it that on the other side of the river the trail would be that of a wagon and a score of unshod horses— But he had discovered also this thing that troubled him, the worn leather shoe at his feet. A Cossack cares for his own horse, always, and Kirdy had cut out that same piece of leather at the Wolky Gorlo, and had nailed on those cleats. It was a piece of ox- hide with the hair still on the inner side. The shoe had been on the off forefoot of the bay stallion Kirdy had left at the Wolky Gorlo as a gift for Nada, the daughter of the wolf master. Nada was a wild girl, as apt to ride after him as to follow the trail of Otrépiev of her own accord. Except the great dog Karai, Nada was the only living being that Kirdy cherished in his heart. Had Nada tried to follow him? Had she fallen into the hands of the Otrépiev party? Or—and Kirdy remembered how Otrépiev’s daring had stirred the girl—had she sought the false Tsar of her own accord? A horse like the bay stallion, he knew, was a magnet that might draw every thief along the Volga. The charger might have been stolen. Kirdy—although he had ex- amined every inch of ground in the camp site—had seen no other traces of Nada. His eyes gleamed under knotted brows. ““May the Father and Son grant that I come up with them!” But, however his spirit burned in him, he did nothing in haste. When he had eaten he threw the bones far enough from the fire to be sure that the wolves that came after them would not approach the horses. Then he led the ponies off to water and picketed them. He piled more brush on the fire and rolled himself up in his fur. He slept lightly because he meant to start before dawn, and several times the stamping of the horses roused him. He felt rather than heard movement in the black abyss around him, and—because it is not well to sleep when others are astir in the steppe— put on his boots and coat, feeding the fire to new life. As he did so he caught the flash of ani- mals’ eyes. The gaunt gray form of Karai HAROLD LAMB moved into the circle of light and flung itself down at the Cossack’s side. Kirdy put out his hand and rubbed the wolfhound’s throat and Karai growled softly as was his wont. “Well, brother,” the young warrior smiled, ‘“‘you have run with the pack and Tl warrant you’ve had the pick of the girls. Will you come with me across the river?’ Again the dog rumbled, the broad head stretched upon the bony paws, the amber eyes intent on the face of his former master. Karai was restless and uneasy, as if antici- pating some evil beyond hisken. ‘The other wolves remained without the firelight—gray shadows against the outer blackness. When Kirdy saddled one pony and lashed the goatskins on the other a little after day- break and went to the water’s edge, Karai paced beside him. The Cossack had dis- covered a shallow stretch where the horses were able to keep their feet half way across. The river* was in flood, but the current sluggish, and the black kabardas struck out for the far side without hesitation, the Cos- sack swimming, Tatar fashion, holding to the tail of one pony. They made the crossing and Kirdy looked back. Karai was still sitting on the western bank, and the wolf pack had come down to sniff at the tracks. “Hi, Karai—smag!” Kirdy called, and waited, hoping that the wolfhound would bark, or run up and down the bank. But the gray beast remained sitting until it threw back its head and howled like the wolf it was. The pack gave tongue, some of the wolves leaping off toward the brush. Karai took his place at the head of the pack. Once he stopped, on a rise, to look back across the river. The long, quavering cry of the hunt swelled and dwindled into dis- tance. “Eh, gray brother,’”? Kirdy murmured, “you served me well. May you have good hunting!” The loss of the wolfhound saddened him for a day. Karai had gone from his side, to the steppe. And Nada, too, had van- ished as if the earth had swallowed her and the bay stallion. The Cossack quested far to the south, searching for the trail that must show where Otrépiev and his men had landed. Then for a week he rode north without seeing so much as the track of a * This must have been the Ural river, then called the Jaick, the farthest landmark in Central Asia known to Cossacks or Muscovites. NOOK C©@