The Wind That Tramps the World[1]
By Frank Owen
The little City of the Big Winds lies on the very roof of the world, among the bleak, storm-blown peaks of the Himalayas, as if flung there by some monstrous, frenzied hand, or snapped from the tip of a whip in the hand of a giant. A grayer or more desolate spot would be hard to imagine, or a spot where the tumult of discord is more frightful.
At first John Steppling had been unable to sleep upon his arrival in the city. It was like being in another world, living in a cloudland of drifting shadows where every breath was an effort, and prolonged exertion almost a physical impossibility. He felt like an empty box, strained to the breaking-point by external things, in danger of collapsing at any moment. At night as he gazed toward the stars, he felt as if he could extend his hand and pick them out of the sky, much as one might pick flowers in a fragrant garden. The sky was so intensely clear that it made him gasp, though possibly the rarefied air would have made him gasp in any case.
He had arrived at the city quite by chance during an exploring expedition in northern India. He had intended to remain in the weird little town only for a single day, and yet somehow he could not bring himself to leave it. It held a wild attraction which he could not define.
For the most part the inhabitants of the city were as poor as church mice—poorer, in truth, for they had only the roughest type of mud-thatched huts wherein to live. By occupation they were shepherds. They watched over thin and sickly flocks of sheep and goats that scraped out a meager existence from the barren, half-frozen soil. They were filthy-looking, illiterate and stolid. In lieu of bathing they smeared their bodies with grease. Water was scarce, and they did not waste it; besides, the grease had a tendency to keep them warm. It kept them odoriferous, as well; but to people unused to the sweet perfumes of which the inhabitants of the lands lying south of them were so fond, the odor did not matter.
Among all the shepherds, Steppling could not find a single one who understood his language, nor did any of them seem to care. So long as they did not bother him, he did not bother them. Their visions were so limited that they were unable to grasp any-
- ↑ From Weird Tales, April, 1925. This story, reprinted here in response to many requests, is now available in book form in a collection of some of the most colorful of Frank Owen's Chinese stories: The Wind That Tramps the World, and Other Stories, published by the Lantern Press.
