Argosy (UK), January 1955 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

34 TOM HOPKINSON away. It was rotten and full of cracks, but the snow had drifted deep around the walls, so there’d be no draughts, and there was the stove in the corner which would keep them warm. Next day, or what he took to be next day, after having some tea and bread and smoking a cigarette, Garrod got Aimo to raise the reason for his visit. ‘They wanted, Aimo told the Lapp, whom he called something that sounded like Olmai, to travel about ten miles northward through the forest in order to inspect the place which seemed most likely for a ferry. Olmai—a little man, dark-skinned, with a face wrinkled all over as though it had once been a big face and had shrunk— evidently recognized the spot. It would be possible to go there, he said, on reirideer sledges. ‘Why not on skis? ”’ asked Garrod. The snow in the forest was too powdery for ski-ing, Olmai explained through Aimo. The stranger would be falling through all the time and catching his skis in tree stumps. A little offended that he should be thought less capable than the others—and puzzled as to how Olmai could know it—Garrod reluctantly agreed to go on sledges, and Olmai went off to make arrangements. Five minutes later he was back. ‘‘ What does he say?” Garrod asked impatiently. “He says it’s no good,” Aimo answered. “The reindeer won't start today.” “What the devil d’you mean? The reindeer won’t start—tell him to make them start! ” “That isn’t the way the Lapps treat their reindeer,’ Aimo explained, and Garrod sensed a certain quiet enjoyment in Aimo as he said it. “‘ They never make them go on journeys as you do with cars and horses. ‘They always talk to them beforehand and tell them where they want to go.” “And if the reindeer says, ‘ No, thanks, I’d rather not,’ they call it off, I suppose? ”’ “Pretty well. But the reindeer doesn’t talk, it sneezes. If his reindeer sneezes when Olmai tells it where he’s going, you can be sure the journey’s off. And Olmai’s reindeer did sneeze.” | “ Oh, for heaven’s sake! ” protested Garrod. “ ‘There won’t be many more days when the moon’s near full. What is it he’s afraid “* He says there’s no proper track where you want to go. Unless the snow’s just right, the reindeer can easily break a leg.” “Tell him if any harm comes to his reindeer, my firm will compensate him—double its value.”’ Aimo spoke, and Olmai answered. At his reply, the two men comicloooks.Ccomn)