Argosy (UK), January 1955 — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

i a —_—. _ . ‘ ~ a San 8 “ . i tie ; c -_ > ‘ - +. a. " - =p “= al ‘ a re ae. ays i Rae a : ~~ aa" “3 * ay - =< = -~ 4 i, NORTH OF MIDNIGHT 43 It was two days later when Garrod opened his eyes in a bed at Ivalo. It was a bed with sheets, and though his face felt as if it had been lately peeled like an apple, he went to sleep again at once. Next time he woke, Aimo was sitting there in the lamplight, and crouched in a corner of the room was Olmai. Aimo looked angry and apologetic. Olmai was smiling benignly like a Buddha. Garrod lay for*a few moments capturing his thoughts and struggling to get his lips apart. ‘Then—‘‘ What made you come after me?” he gasped. “It was a straightforward trip. I ought to have made it easily.” ; ““Olmai did,” answered Aimo. “ As soon as we got back to the hut, he said, ‘ Something’s wrong. ‘The reindeer are upset.’ Then he spoke to Tania, and at once decided we must go after you. He harnessed two of the reindeer and we followed your tracks on sledges. After he’d stopped your nose falling off from _ ___ frost-bite, we decided to bring you into Ivalo. The distance was much the same, but you could be looked after better here.” a “So Olmai was Father Christmas,”’ Garrod thought. He was too tired to say anything out loud. A picture of Olmai on his reindeer sledge simply formed before his mind, and faded. As it did so, he noticed Olmai smile, and the Lapp said something to Aimo softly. a “What’s that?” Garrod roused himself to ask. “ What’s — Olmai saying?” “He says that if you can turn him into an old man with a white beard and a red coat, you’re a bigger wizard than he is,” Aimo told him. ‘I don’t know what the hell the little chap’s talking about. Better go to sleep now and shut up.” Which is exactly what Garrod did. “ Be a comicbooks.com 4 -