Komatik

“ Charley admitted. "It's mighty cold standing in one place so long."
"Wait a bit," said Toby. "I'll be gettin' a box to put the trout in, and the old komatik to haul un up to the house. Wait and help me."
Charley busied himself throwing the fish from the three piles into one, while Toby followed Violet to the house, and when he had finished looked out over the bay. Far down the bay he saw something moving over the ice, and in a moment recognized it as an approaching dog team.
"Somebody's coming!" he shouted to Toby. "There's a team of dogs coming up the bay!" ”

“ Charley threw himself upon it, still clinging to the whip, as the dogs, at a mad gallop, turned across a neck of the marsh and toward a low hill that rose at the edge of the barrens and a quarter of a mile to the westward.
The komatik bounced from side to side with every hummock of ice it struck, and186 several times was in imminent danger of overturning. Charley shouted "Ah! Ah!" at the top of his voice in vain effort to stop the mad beasts, and then "Ouk! Ouk! Ouk!" and "Rahder! Rahder! Rahder!" in the hope that they would swing to the right or to the left and return to the starting point. ”

“ We were on the trail before dawn, Emuk with his snowshoes tramping the road ahead of the dogs and Amnatuhinuk driving the team. The temperature must have been at least ten degrees below zero. The weather was bitterly cold for men so thinly clad as Easton and I were, and the snow was so deep that we could not exercise by running, for we had no snowshoes, and while we wallowed through the deep snow the dogs would have left us behind, so we could do nothing but sit on the komatik (sledge) and shiver. ”

“ Teena asked.
“We left them in the bay,” Roy, the portly man, said.
“I guess so,” Eddie said, smiling. “No one ever catches any fish out over the sand bar. The fish hang around in the deeper water.”
“Well, we don’t care much for fish, anyway,” Roy said.
“Then why do you go fishing?” Teena wondered.
“We do it to get away from kids who ask silly questions,” Simms said curtly. “Now beat it and leave us alone.” He tossed the two fishing poles onto the dock and climbed out of the boat. ”

“ About two o’clock the Comet was off Kempoch Point, a headland on the south side of the river, between the Cloch Lighthouse and the village of Gourock, and close to which vessels bound for Greenock usually steer. The important precaution of displaying a light had been neglected; and a jib-sail was set, which, in a great measure, precluded any person but the man on the lookout from seeing directly a head. Captain McInnes, according to the most credible statement, was on the cabin-deck, conversing with such individuals as were near him. ”

“ Kokomo has been for many years a very prosperous place. It has been the happy home of a very intelligent and very thrifty people. You are now, however, realizing a development more rapid and much greater than the most sanguine among you could have anticipated three years ago. ”

“ Krometz had not hesitated to receive the handsome sum that one so beautiful as Komel could not fail to command.
Aphiz was almost too miserable to be able to find words to express his feelings. A bitter tear stole down his sunburnt check as he saw the mother's grief, but a stern flash of the eye was also visible in the expression of his face. He sought at once the highest cliff beyond the cottage, and in the distant, far-off horizon, could dimly make out the white canvas of the slave cutter, no bigger than a sea-bird, on the skirts of the horizon. ”

“ Eddie got the Geiger counter out of the closet. He told his mother how he had been wanting to try it out on Cedar Point. He told her about the dream he had had.
“Well, I guess you never can tell,” Mrs. Taylor said. “According to your father, uranium ore often shows up in most unlikely places.”
“Cedar Point isn’t so unlikely, Mom,” Eddie said. “There are lots of rock formations out there. Uranium ore is usually located where there are plenty of rocks.”
When Teena arrived Eddie was all set to leave. He wore swimming trunks under his blue jeans. ”

“ Komel laid her hand with nervous energy upon Aphiz's arm. The hawk was beyond the reach of his rifle, and realizing this he dropped its breach once more to his side. A moment more and the bolder bird was bearing its prey to its mountain nest, there to feed upon it innocent body. Neither Komel nor Aphiz uttered one word, but turned sadly away from the scene that had seemed so applicable to the subject of their conversation. He bade her a tender good night, but as the young mountaineer wended his way down the valley he was sad at heart, and asked himself if Komel might not be that dove. ”

“ Much of his father’s work at Oceanview College was of a secret nature. Eddie had learned not to ask questions about it. His father usually volunteered any information he wanted known, so Eddie stuck to questions which could and would be answered.
“We get vacations,” his father said. “But—well, my work is a little different, you know. At the speed atomic science is moving today, we simply can’t afford to waste time. But don’t worry. We’ll take a week or so off before school starts in the fall. Maybe head for the mountains with our tent and sleeping bags.”
“And Geiger counter?” ”

“ Eddie called back over his shoulder. Teena followed as he went on toward the foot of the bluff.
“Hey, look,” Eddie said. “There’s a kind of path that zigzags up the bluff. I’ve never noticed that before.”
“It’s not much of a path,” Teena said, looking up the steeply winding trail. “And I don’t know why anyone would want to use it to get to this cove. It’s much easier coming up the beach.”
“But someone’s been using it,” Eddie said. “See how the ground’s stirred up. I can’t figure why anyone would want to land a boat in this cove, then climb up and down that bluff before going fishing. Can you?” ”

“ There was black-and-white paint on his body; the stripes of the Koshare do not come off easily. I saw Tse-tse look from the man to Kokomo and the face of the Koshare turned grayish. I had lived with man, and man-thoughts came to me. I had tasted blood of my master's enemies; also Kokomo was afraid, and that is an offense to me. I dropped from where I lay ... I had come to my full weight ... I think his back was broken.
"It is the Way Things Are," said Moke-icha. "Kokomo had let in the Diné to kill Pitahaya to make himself chief, and he would have killed Tse-tse for finding out about it. ”

“ In the head of the comet itself a certain part of its matter is broken up into fine bits, single molecules perhaps, which, as they no longer cling together, may be described as in the condition of vapor. By the repellent action of both sun and comet these molecules are cast out from the head of the comet and stream away in the direction opposite to the sun with different velocities, the heavy ones slowly and the light ones faster, much as particles of smoke stream away from a smokestack, making for the comet a tail which like a trail of smoke is composed of constantly changing particles. ”

“ Eddie switched off the Geiger counter. They found some shade under a wind-twisted oak and ate their lunch. Eddie glanced at the sun. “It must be one o’clock,” he said. “Guess we’d better be starting back. The water will be a little choppier than this morning. Won’t be so easy to row. I don’t want to get home late, or my mom will scalp me.”
“Let’s go,” Teena said. “Anyway, we’ve done enough prospecting out here to know there’s no uranium around.”
On the way back to the boat Eddie tried out the Geiger counter in a couple of places they had missed. ”

“ They will say: "A great man is being buried down in Kristiania"; and when the news comes, it always corresponds with their statement. It may happen, at sea, that such a man will say to the captain that he will do well to go out of his course for a little while; and he is always obeyed, for the crew are quite sure that he beholds in front of the ship what none of them perceive, perhaps a goblin in his half-boat, or a spectre, or something else that brings misfortune.
One of Komag-Nils' many stories of this kind had happened to an acquaintance of his during the winter fishing. ”

“ Except for the faint background count, the Geiger counter gave no sign of there being any uranium-bearing ore on Cedar Point.
After a tiring hour and a half of hard climbing over and around the outcroppings, Teena suggested they stop and eat their picnic lunch.
“Might as well,” Eddie said. “Sure doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything out here. Lot of trouble for nothing, huh?”
“Oh, no, Eddie,” Teena disagreed. “We’re having fun aren’t we? After all, you’re supposed to have fun during vacation.” ”

“ Eddie’s father said. “Although we don’t know just what they’re planning.”
“You will, you will,” said Captain Daniels. “But right now I’ve got to check my light. Darker’n a ship’s hold with a cargo of tar paper tonight, it is. Won’t be much to see—until things start poppin’. Might be a good idea to sit there in front of my cottage and watch down the coast. Just don’t light any matches, or make undue noise. If you spot any strange lights, things may start happening. I probably won’t see you for a while. Can’t stop the light unless I’m up top.” ”

“ One there was among the young mountaineers, Aphiz Adegah, whose whole life and soul seemed bound up in the lovely Komel, as she was called. Neither was more than eighteen; indeed Komel was not so old, for but sixteen full summers had passed over her head. They had grown up together from very childhood, played together, worked together, sharing each other's burthens, and mutually aiding each other; now quietly watching the sheep and goats upon the hillsides, and now working side by side in the fields, content and happy, so they were always together. ”

“ And as the years went by, the scientists of Kom came to more and more wisdom. They found ways to strengthen their own bodies, so that they lived for great stretches of time, as we do yet. They sent their explorers out to other planets, they cast their vision out to the farthest stars. They learned to create life, and they learned to conquer death, almost. The flight of the soul from the body they could not control, for there is a wisdom above man's, but the body itself they could retain as moving and lifelike as in life itself, though soulless. ”

“ The form of the coma, in that part which is free from the tail, is in general a portion of a circle, but is sometimes irregular, with its border deformed. Thus, the border of the coma of Halley's comet was depressed at one point towards the Sun. I observed a similar phenomenon in Coggia's comet, with the great refractor of the Harvard College Observatory, on July 13th, 1874, when its border appeared deeply depressed on the side nearest to the Sun, as if repelled by this body. ”

“ Eddie asked.
“What a question,” Teena said. “Sure, I want to go.”
“Eddie,” his mother reminded him, “you can’t go over to school in your swim trunks. Go slip on some denims.”
Eddie hurried to his room and put on some freshly laundered denims. Then, leaving the metal tube still wrapped in the blue jeans, he and Teena started down the street toward the college campus.
Mr. Taylor was waiting for them in front of the nuclear-science building. He seemed strangely excited. Eddie wondered what his mother had said over the telephone. ”

“ These people are notorious for their importunity and their gift for lampooning those who refuse them alms, and they trade upon the fact.
The Kómatis are the great trading and money-lending caste of the Telugu country, and are not popular. They call themselves Vaisyas, wear the sacred thread, claim to have 102 'gótras,' and of late years some of them have adopted Védic rites at their marriages and funerals in place of the Puránic rites which are traditional with them. ”

“ At that time the buffalo and the deer were plentiful, and the men went on their trail gaily till they reached the river of many forks (Trinity River) , for they knew that every day brought them nearer and nearer to the forts of their people, though it was yet a long way--very long. The Pale-face chief had a son with him; a noble youth, fair to look upon, active and strong: the Comanches loved him. Mosh Kohta had advised him to distrust two of his own warriors ”

“ Eddie said. “Teena and I saw him out fishing a couple of times with a fat man called Roy Benton. Then I thought I saw Mr. Simms last week on the college campus.”
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“Well, we have nearly two thousand enrolled for summer courses, you know,” his father explained. “Many of them are adults. Teachers taking extra credit courses, or studying for their masters’ degrees. I imagine a lot of them go fishing on their days off. Any reason I should know this Simms?” ”

“ The society in Kokomo is much better than it used to be, and is such that a man who mingles with it much inevitably enjoys himself. I have renewed my old acquaintance with the ladies, and yesterday two of them, Misses Whenett and Hazzard, came up and spent an hour in sweet communion with me in my office. ”

“ Having no mental occupation, the poor boy, who was, as far as his physical developments went, a specimen of rare youthful beauty and grace of form, employed a large portion of his time in such exercises and feats of agility as a sort of animal instinct might lead him to attempt, and thus Komel was often startled by suddenly beholding him dangling by his feet from some lofty cypress, swinging to and fro like a monkey ”

“ As a matter of religious sentiment he slew his prisoners, trusting thus he propitiate the gods. But the gods hide their thoughts as well as their countenances. And it was after one of these pious performances that Komm fell into the greatest danger. Wandering in the land of the Morini, he had just slain by night on a stone in the forest two young and handsome prisoners, when on issuing from the wood he and all his men were surprised by the cavalry of Volusenus, which, being better armed and better skilled in manœuvring, surrounded him and killed many of his warriors and their horses. ”