Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

_ Siberia proper. in the Sky bY HAROLD LAMB Author béf up. he Village of the Ghost,” ep he House of the Strongest,” etc. HE long night of Winter had be- gun. Snow-flurries swept the heights of the Syansk Range that separates Mongolia. from In that year early in the eighteenth century under the heights a great quiet had fallen. Ice formed along the banks of the streams. _ Another week and the passes into the north- ern plain, with its scattered settlements, would be closed. The few traders who still lingered in the Syansk were hurrying down to the towns, several hundred miles away. - More and more the play of the northern lights obscured the brightness of U pener, the - polar star. cropping of lichen and Pamir grass. As he had done for a score of years Maak, the Buriat reindeer-keeper, led his herd from _ the upland pastures down to the valleys where the streams were still open and the larches had a thin garment of foliage. His beasts were sleek from a season’s Their coats were growing heavier against the frost that was sending to cover all animal life on the heights. Two hundred or more, _. they followed obediently the white reindeer that was Maak’s mount. Maak’s broad face was raised to the sky of evenings. His keen, black eyes followed the flicker of elusive lights above and behind the mountain summits. A gate, he knew, _ was ready to open in the sky, and through it _ the spirits—the fengert—would look down on the earth This happened only occasionally, when the magic lights were very bright in the Autumn—as now. For those who saw the open gate in the sky it was an omen. omen of death or great achievement—one would not know which until time brought fulfilment. “Some day the gate in the sky will open,” he repeated to himself quietly as he watched of nights. It might well mean death when he would be drawn up by the Qoren Vairgin, the king- spirit of the reindeer. Then he would make brave sport among the flaming lights and perhaps look forth in his is ti from the spirit gate upon the whole world—upon the Mongolian plain whence the Chinese mer- chants sometimes came to barter for the soft horns of a young reindeer, to the towns from which the Russian colonist traders ar- rived every other year or so. Maak knew of no world other than this. At times he wondered whether the gate would ever open. Maak had seen no living being but his clansmen, the Buriats—and had seen them only in the Spring and Fall changes of pasture. ones of the clan, the reindeer-keepers. He had been told that the traders were superior fellows indeed. Never did Maak leave his reindeer. The herd furnished him milk and fat. His long coat, soft boots and cap were of their skins. His bowstring was reindeer gut; the skin- ning-knife he inherited from his father, who had been a herder. ‘ 144 An He belonged to the wandering, Gomick 900 i > co Sees LE SSI eae oes