Karst

“ Now that our task was accomplished, our minds reverted to the boy at the base camp long anxiously expecting us, and we thought of him and spoke of him continually and speculated how he had fared. One feels upon reflection that we took more risk in descending that ridge than we took at any time in the ascent. But Karstens was most cautious and careful, and in the long and intensive apprenticeship of this expedition had become most expert. ”

“ She was pretty good to us children, though she never liked any of our fun or play, no matter what it was. Karsten was her especial favorite. He amused her mightily because he exaggerated so much. She would listen with a most serious face to Karsten’s yarns.
“We have a cat at home,” Karsten told her, “that is the wickedest cat in the whole town. No other cat dares come into our yard, for our cat either bites its head off or kills it at once.” ”

“ Karsten pitched into Petter and then they began to fight in the back of the wagon.
"Are you Tartars both of you?" said I, and took a tight grip in the back of Karsten's jacket. "Don't you jump out of your skin now! If you fly at people this way as you are always doing, you shall trot back to Goodfields alone!" ”

“ Karsten always pretends that he knows everything the bigger boys plan among themselves. As a matter of fact, they simply order him around as much as they please, but he will never acknowledge that.
“We were going to have that box to put our balls in,—snowballs, you know. We were going to make lots of them right after dinner, and then drag the box full of snowballs through Main Street and up Back Gorge and there we would be—right behind Tangen in a jiffy.” ”

“ To tell the truth, Karsten is perfectly stupid about swapping. The other boys can fool him like everything. He doesn't understand a bit how to do business, and so I always feel like taking charge of these stamp bargainings myself. If I see a boy I don't know very well, peeping around the corner or sneaking up the hill, I am right on hand, for boys that want to trade never come running; they act as if they [Pg 61] were spying round and lying in wait for some one.
The instant Karsten sees them he comes out with his stamp album. ”

“ Then my troubles with Karsten began. Yes, I entirely agree that children are a nuisance to travel with. In the first place, Karsten [Pg 48] wanted to stand forever and look down into the machinery room. I held on to him by the jacket, and threatened him and told him to come away. Far from it! He was as stubborn as a mule. Humph! a great thing it would have been if he had fallen down between the shining steel arms of the machinery and been crushed! O dear me! At last he had had enough of that. Then he began to open and shut the door which led into the deck cabin ”

“ Karsten had done nothing but run around through the rooms without greeting any one, shouting, “Where is Hedvig? Where is Dan?” Ugh! that rude Karsten! What would Mother think of his not greeting anybody, but just running around asking for the milkmaid and the dog? I must say it was decidedly necessary that I should come and behave properly. When I choose, I can behave myself charmingly, almost like a grown-up young lady. I say, “What, please?” or “I beg your pardon?” to people sometimes even when I hear perfectly what they say ”

“ Karsthans demands how it is compatible to be spiritual in the cloister and cunning in the world, to which Murner replies: Incompatibilia auctoritate Papæ unici possunt. ("Incompatibles can be made to agree by the authority of the Pope.") Karsthans, who calls this a lie, is roundly abused by Murner: "Thou boorish clown, injustum est ut monachis operandibus servi eorum otio torpeunt". ("It is unjust that while monks are working, their servants should [Pg 127] slumber in idleness.") "Yea, truly!" answers Karsthans, "ye stink of secrets." During the dispute Luther enters. ”

“ But oh! the fun Karsten and I have!
Sometimes we begin away back on the hilltop and make sluices, and wall them up with heather and moss, so as to make the water run where we want it to. Karsten carries the stones and gets fiery red in the face, even with his hat off. I do the walling up and give the orders, for I am the engineer, you see.
It must be awfully nice to be an engineer when you are grown up, but sad to say, I never can be, since I am a girl. However, Karsten can be the engineer and I can sit in his office and be the one to manage the whole concern, just as I do on the hilltop here ”

“ Karsten told his companion. "Nice and clean."
Thurman smiled. "Thank you," he said. And then, "Too bad you had to give him up."
Shrugging his shoulders, Karsten said, "Well, that's the way of things. I don't remember him too well, but I think he taught me anthropology. Old Mac something-or-other. I forget his name."
The two men started walking back towards the entrance to the canyon. "I suppose that I could have taken him anyway," Karsten said as they walked. "But I've never considered it good taste to shoot someone whom I've known." ”

“ Karsten hadn't come; we didn't know whether it was the circus or our having "lu-de-fisk" for dinner that kept him away.
Suddenly the dining-room door was thrown open, and there he stood in the doorway, very red in the face and so excited he could hardly speak.
"Can the circus-riders keep their horses in our barn?" he asked, all out of breath. You [Pg 258] know we had a big, old barn that was never used. Karsten had to repeat what he had said; we always have to speak awfully clearly to Father; he won't stand any slovenly talk. ”

“ Ugh! Karsten has grown so conceited lately that he is beyond everything. He is always saying that I am nothing but a girl, but that he is a boy, he is. (Oh, you wait, Karsten Cocky-cub; you’ll get paid for such talk, depend upon it.)
The thought of the customs officer wouldn’t [Pg 213] bother me much if I didn’t need now and then to go into the top loft, but I do need to, you see. Up there in one corner lies a great heap of papers that old Mr. Borgen left in the house, stiff yellow papers with accounts on them. ”

“ How we children ran after that little billy-goat! But Karsten was the worst, for he went to the forest every single day to tend it and brought it home every single night.
"I rather think I shall have to give you that kid," said Mother Goodfields to Karsten one night as he came along carrying it.
From that time Karsten was a changed boy altogether, for he didn't give a thought to the big lake that he had cared so much about all summer. In his brain there was absolutely [Pg 226] nothing but that billy-goat. It ate bread and butter and drank out of a teacup ”

“ That's the way Karsten is, you see.
Oh, pshaw! A fine rain had begun, the [Pg 198] mountains were perfectly black, and patches of fog lay all around.
"Perhaps you'd like to fish," said Augusta; "they usually bite in such weather."
Trond and Olsen had begun to cut the grass around the hut, and Petter Kloed and Karsten started off with fishing-rods over their shoulders. You should have seen Karsten with the fishing-rod and with the kerchief on his head.
Andrine and I wanted to help Augusta get dinner, for it was exactly like playing in a doll-house, only much more fun! ”

“ When two days out from Taos, Carson and his young companion came suddenly upon four Indian warriors. There was no escape, for the warriors, though at a distance, had seen them, and were riding rapidly down upon them. This noble young Mexican promptly turned to Kit Carson and said, "I am but a boy and perhaps the Indians will spare my life. At any rate your life is much more valuable than mine. Therefore mount the horse you are leading without delay, and you can undoubtedly make your escape." ”

“ Of course, everybody on the Santa Fé Trail knew about Kit Carson, the free-trapper and captain of trappers, who as merely a boy had made such a name for himself in the mountains and who recently had come out of them, to live at Fernandez de Taos and to supply meat for Bent’s Fort, north. Ere leaving the Missouri frontier little Oliver had heard of Kit Carson as though he were ten feet tall and four feet wide, and bore a pine-tree for a club; but now little Oliver beheld an ordinary-looking person, not much taller than himself and not nearly so tall as many of the other trappers ”

“ But for the dread in which the savages stood of the powers of the white men, the advantages would have been in their favor ten to one. There were unerring marksmen on both sides. No one could expose himself to the aim of either party without almost certain death. Kit Carson and one of his companions, by the name of Markhead, were the foremost of the band of trappers, and they stood behind trees not far from each other. As Carson was watching the movements of a burly savage, who was endeavoring to get a shot at him, he saw another savage taking deliberate aim, from his concealment, at Markhead. ”

“ Even savage muscles will get weary in the frenzied dance, and the continuously repeated war-whoop will exhaust the most stentorian lungs. Carson ordered his men to remain perfectly quiet in their concealment. As they had but a scanty allowance of clothing, they suffered much from the intense cold. Soon after midnight the savages threw themselves down around the fires and most of them were soon soundly asleep.
Kit Carson then, with five of his companions, cautiously crept towards the horses, drew out the picket-pins and led them a short distance to a place of concealment nearer their own camp. ”

“ She extended a claw-like hand, the hand of an old woman, and spoke in the soft contralto voice that Carson knew as that of Marie Pilotte, the sweet singer.
"Oh, but we've met before, haven't we, Mr. Carson? The Lido?"
"He spoke hysterically, pointing to the dead tiger."
Carson's power of speech seemed to have left him. He bowed over the wrinkled hand; smiled. And she went on, "I never used to forget the press men—the big ones like you, I mean. It meant a write-up, and if it was favorable——" She laughed a low, rippling laugh, youthful and sweet. ”

“ He knew full well the treacherous character of the Indians, and that "the better part of valor is discretion."
He had often seen men killed at night by an invisible foe. From the impenetrable darkness which surrounded the camp fire, an arrow would come winged with death, piercing the heart of some mountaineer whose body was clearly revealed by the firelight. Kit Carson would never thus expose himself. He would always spread his blanket where the firelight would not reveal him.
"No, no boys," he would say to his often reckless comrades, "you may hang around the fire if you will. ”

“ The days of labor were long and many. Hardship piled up on hardship, as it ever does in the spring of the northland. There was no ease for leader or man. Only labor, unceasing, terrific.
Kars moved aside from the Bell River Indian encampment. He passed to the west of it, beyond all sight of the workings he had explored on the memorable night of his discovery. And he took the gorge from the north, seeking its heart for his camp, on the wide foreshore beyond the dumps of pay dirt which had first yielded him their secret. ”

“ He had been compelled to drop his rifle in his flight. The grizzly bear can climb a tree, far more easily than can a man. He was too far distant from the camp to hope for aid from that quarter. Again it seemed that a dreadful death was inevitable.
The bears hesitated for a moment, growling and showing their claws and their white teeth. Quick as thought Carson cut and trimmed from the tree a stout cudgel, which would neither break nor bend. Soon, one of the bears commenced climbing the tree. The nose of the bear is very tender, and is the only point vulnerable to blows. ”

“ Kars knew his man on the instant. The voice was the voice of Louis Creal, the half-breed who had warned him of the danger of Bell River. He could have laughed had not the moment been too desperate.
On the instant of impact with the ground Kars released his hold of the man's body, and with catlike agility hurled himself at the man's throat. With the threat of the revolver over him there remained only one means of defence. He must paralyze all action even if he killed the man under his hands. Physically his assailant was no match for him, but the gun leveled things up. ”

“ It is said, as illustrative of Kit's promptness of action, that one night an inexperienced guard shouted "Indians." In an instant Kit was on his feet, pistol in hand. A dark object was approaching him. The loss of a second of time might enable a savage to bury his arrow-head deep in his side and to disappear in the darkness. Like a flash of lightning Kit fired and shot his mule. It was a false alarm.
The traders arrived safely in Santa Fe. Kit Carson, having faithfully performed his contract, began to look around for new adventures. ”

“ There was really nothing to be said for Mr Karswell. Nobody knew what he did with himself: his servants were a horrible set of people; he had invented a new religion for himself, and practised no one could tell what appalling rites; he was very easily offended, and never forgave anybody; he had a dreadful face (so the lady insisted, her husband somewhat demurring) ; he never did a kind action, and whatever influence he did exert was mischievous. 'Do the poor man justice, dear,' the husband interrupted. 'You forget the treat he gave the school children.' 'Forget it, indeed! ”