Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

The Snow Driver from the dogs. Thorne learned thereafter that dogs and reindeer were hostile as the two tribes that were served by each animal. Kyrger lost no time in putting the rein- deer into the leather traces, tying the guid- ing thong attached to their off horns to the hand bar of the sledge. Then he beckoned Thorne who discovered that the savage had picked up a pair of the wocden skates dropped by one of the Ostiaks. They were shorter than the Samoyed’s and heavier, and Kyrger bound them firmly to Thorne’s boots. Then he led the outlander to the rear of the sledge and made him put his hands on the waist-high bar at the back. “Thus,” he murmured to himself, ‘‘we will go as swiftly as the white pigeon flying before the wind. Bequiet my master! Let your spirit be strong when we meet new enemies who dwell where winged things can not enter and things with bones can not pass. Kai—it will be a long journey, O Thunderer, O Leaner-Against-the-Wind.”’ He glided off and picked up the two staffs, which, pointed and bearing sizeable cross- pieces a foot from the point, enabled him to push himself along rapidly where the snow surface was level, as if he were poling a light canoe through shallows. Alone, he would never have started after the wizard, who could make the long journey to the hall of Erlik in the spirit world of the cold, underground region, or invoke ermecin the white bear. But after the fight on the bark, Kyrger had immense confidence in Thorne. He be- lieved that the armiger as well as the shaman was possessed by a spirit, whether the rein- deer, the gull, the bear or the eagle, he did not know. How else had he scattered eleven Ostiaks? He went ahead of the deer, running at times, but oftener thrusting himself onward a dozen paces with the staffs. Faster he went and faster, squatting on his haunches when the head of a slope was reached and flashing down with the speed of a flying thing. The reindeer struck into their loose- limbed trot that covered distance amazing- ly. Thorne for a while had all he could do to hang on and keep his feet. Once the toe of his skis caught in a fallen branch and he was thrown heavily. But he soon learned how to lift himself over obstacles and to keep his feet together. 93 The gray obscurity of the day merged into the flickering radiance of night with its at- tendant fires in the northern sky. Kyrger looked like a winged gnome, speeding over the slot in the snow; Peter was no more than a motionless bulk under the fur pelt. Thorne could not stop and make camp for the shipman’s sake. Joan, somewhere ahead of them was flying through this wilderness of unmarked snow. The reindeer no longer seemed to him to be running. They flew through the air, their whitish bodies invisible in the smother . of powdered snow, their black-muzzled heads laid back so that the horns rested along their shoulders. fF fe) HOW long they raced through the sis night he did not know... They were | | sliding down a winding gully where a few stunted larches thrust up through the drifts, when Kyrger whirled to a halt and strung his bow. His arrow sped and struck something invisible to Thorne. But the hunter pushed himself to where it lay and brought back a long white hare. With his knife he stripped the skin off its back and offered it to the outlander. There was no time to stop to make a fire, even if wood had been at hand. The ache of hunger was strong enough for him to suck some of the blood from the hare; but then he handed it back to Kyrger, who ate the raw flesh, still steaming hot, without a qualm. Meanwhile Thorne satisfied himself that Peter was breathing. From the gully they descended to the level surface of a frozen lake, down which the trail of the dog sleds ran. Here the reindeer, refreshed by the brief halt, made fast time.and Thorne peered ahead for a sight of the Ostiak. For hours they followed the windings of the lake, which grew steadily narrower. Trees appeared on either hand and soon they were moving between the solid walls of a forest of spruce and fir. When the strip of water was no more than a stream, Kyrger slowed down and halted his reindeer which had been running the last few miles with tongues lolling out. Coming to Thorne’s side, the Samoyed pointed above the trees ahead of them and to the right, and after a moment the armiger made out what his companion had seen, a wavering line of smoke rising against the gray sky. COMiICcloOoe (©