The Huttig news., 1909-03-13
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  KARL ENGEL.,| IADvENTURF:R| - -
 By DONALD KENNICOTT
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IudThel. haI1 EnSel $ IdI SIdDl9l SieGpS the deep sleep of neontide and of re- pletien. Within. Karl Engel himself 1 leans back in his chair. with his pudgy hands clasped over his fat stom- ach, and-dozes. The young reporter who stands on the street corner wait ing for car which is 10 bear him down to his daily tasks. for the hun dredth time tells himself gloo1ily that the world is composed entirely of the bourgeoisie. and that Karl Eng in particular, dozing there in the butcher shop, is bourgeois to the nth power
 Whistling progressively, Karl's as sistant comes in from his belated luncheon and resumes his apron. The wholesalers wagon backs up to the sidewalk, and Karl, bas;irring him self to picker with the driver concern ing the choice of meats, presently staggers back into the shop under an imposing quarter of beef With, mighty heave, he lifts it so that 1t shall catch the hook. and as it swings into place on the rack, he brings it to standstill with a resounding slap that is really a earess, and murmurs to himself: "Ach, he was fine fel- low now. He came from out there
 For though Karls body was cab ined within the narrow precincts of a metropolitan meat market, his soul fared far abroad into the celestial. spaces of the western wilds- into that ra{. fal and large pistols. of Mayne Reid and savage beasts. of Harry Castleman and mad Mexicans. Out there the good, brave beef cattle roamed up and down, .sa wing the earth, until the circling "lasso" laid them low; out there the ipsidious Indian added arrows to ones persup and rare zest to every enter pIise; and there was gold and blood ard fre-a mans world Ach, him nal, some day he would go, even he. Earl Engel of Market street. would gQ out there, away from beeves which We're but stiff and bloodless simua- era, away from men who were but nae, soulless shadows, away from yes. one must be prepared to make | brown glass at Kohlberg's on the corner.
 With each recurring spring there came days when, occasion permitting. Karl would shuttle uneasily up and down the sawdusted floor of the shop instead of dozing in his chair. AL ways then, Paul Ludwig. the assist ant, who was ambitious to possess shop of his own. would inquire quite perti- nenily why. then, he did not go out there. But always Karl would sigt gloomily, and defer the day of depart ute until his bank account should have reached the definite and delectable sum of $2,500; and gradually the springtime and the Wanderlust would wear away together.
 Yet, at last, on rare, balmy day in March, there came news hat the death of that faraway uncle which sets so many ambitions at liberty to vault. had placed to Karfs credit a multi tude of marks, which, when trans lated into the good round dollars of the republic, brought he bank account
 
 was now his own man. and Karl, after pacing up and down in the sawdust for stormy hour, thumped down his fist upon the eleaver- block and spoke with the stern voice of mighty resolve He would go; tomorrow he would go, and Paul Ludwig must run the shop and hire a new assistant.
 Sleepless hours of preparation en- sued First the making of his will. in which, as a childless widower. he bequeathed the bank account to his bro hers little girl and the shop to the faithful Paul Ludwig. Next, the acking of the ancient leather t-unk-an op- eraiion that for years he had re- hearsed and secretly prepared for. Side by side in it's capacious depths were tucked the Mackinac blankets suit which he had bought nine years be- fore on hearing it's cold-resisting vir- tues praised by a reformed lumber jack in Kohlberg's back room; the slashed Mexican trousers of black vel vetesn which six years before he had seen worn at the masked ball of the 1cuHtN DS HOtldcAs ana Hd0 dStuIeiy traced back to the costumers whence they came the lowheeled farmers boots which lie had observed in the window of a shop near the Union sta ton. the harmless, necessary red handkerchief and the smoked goggles with which to combat the desert sun. With them. too, were placed the '1asso" which on glad. golden day long ago. while over at the wards to pay his bills, Karl had seen fall from the saddle of enc of the yard herders; the big pistol upon which he had looked with covetous eyes for months. as it lay in the dusty pawn shop window, until he had seen an other customer considering it and had been frightened into immediate pur- chase; and last--but, oh not least the long. brass-mounted target rife, with it's exaggerated bnti-rlate and fore-ead handle, with which Karl, at the monthly meeting of the Sehutzen. verein, given solid rest and six u1n-