Swords From the East Read Online Free Page A

would search for them, perhaps for hours, and leave the herd unwatched.
    He trotted around the ashes of the fire, found the trail that led north along the stream. The ground was frozen, but here and there patches of fern and bracken told him what he wanted to know. His herd had been driven off, bunched, followed by horses.
    Petrovan had taken his reindeer.
    The thought stung Maak into action. The vacant stare hardened in his eyes, and his hands clenched. With worried, anxious movements he urged the white reindeer after the herd. He was angry, puzzled.
    Why had the trader tried to steal his herd? The Siberian had more than an hour's start, yet Maak knew that he would be up with the fugitives before noon, so swiftly did his white beast eat up distance. Then, of course, Petrovan must give him back his reindeer. What else could be done?
    Three hours later, rounding a turn in the ravine, Maak heard the whang of gun in his face and the shrill flight of a bullet close overhead.
    He did not stop. A second report, and dirt flew up under the nose of the white buck. Then Maak knew that this was no strange jest of the gentleman's-no attempt to beguile him to the Siberian towns with his herd. He, Maak, had been robbed of the herd that had been his father's and his grandfather's. If he tried to follow the thieves they would kill him as speedily as they had butchered the two young deer.
    With a wild cry the Buriat turned his steed aside and scrambled headlong away up the mountain slope, pursued by shots from Petrovan's gun and a shout of laughter from where Orani hid behind the rocks.
    Maak passed from sight swiftly, for the heavy flakes of snow began to screen the mountain from the river and to cover all traces of the vanished herd.
    Only one thing troubled Orani; they had let Maak know, before they decided on the rape of the herd, that they were headed for Irkutsk.
    "Do you think the old man of the mountain would sneak after us to the settlement?"
    Petrovan laughed until his beard bristled at the thought.
    "I'd like to see him before a magistrate!"
    Orani spat and closed one eye.
    "This snow," he muttered. "Two days it has snowed and the -himself could not smell out hoof marks under a foot of this. But, you see, excellency, we have had to go slowly, driving this accursed herd, and Maak knows that we must have gone through the northern pass to Irkutsk. It would be better if we had not told him."
    They both looked back at the ragged rock summits of the Syansk, now coated from river to summit with unbroken white save where the gray network of forest showed.
    No living thing was to be seen. Their spirits had mounted since leav ing the pass unmolested, although they knew that the heavy snow-just now ceased-had covered their flight.
    Petrovan shrugged.
    "A rabbit couldn't come near us out here without being seen, you fool! That rascal of a Maak was frightened out of his senses by my shots. He is as timid as that white mongrel stag he rides. Come now; tonight we camp on this bank of the river."
    Petrovan was indolent about crossing streams before making camp.
    "Tomorrow, by the holy relics, we'll be across the Irkut and on the Siberian steppe."
    Somewhat to their surprise, the silent Mongol slave broke into tongue as they rode down to the river-now wide and swift and to be forded only here for many miles. He wanted to cross the water before making camp.
    "He is afraid that that dog of a Maak will make magic back yonder on the mountains," leered Orani.
    The half-breed swore at the Mongol, and they made camp where they were. Orani rather wished Maak had shown up again. He wanted a shot at the Buriat-Petrovan had made a mess of the shooting.
    While Petrovan snored through the night the half-breed sat with his back to a broad tree, watching, by the intermittent flickering in the sky, lest a thin, black figure try to approach the herd over the snow.
    No one came. The herd edged about restlessly, seeking moss under the snow. Their flanks were beginning