In spite of the many obstacles hindering his progress, he felt in high spirits. During the whole journey from Sweden he had lived closed in with other people, forced to be part of a group. Here he had miles of space in every direction, he didn’t hit his head on a ceiling, his elbows against walls, he didn’t jostle anyone if he moved. Here he walked along as if the whole wide wilderness were his own, to do with as he pleased; wherever he wished, he could choose his land, blaze a trunk: “This earth is mine!” he thought.
He was in high spirits because he was the first one here, because he knew a freedom which none of those would have who came after him. He walked through the forest as if he had a claim to everything around him, as if he now were taking possession and would rule a whole kingdom. Here he would soon feel at home and know his way.
Now he was searching for Ki-Chi-Saga; the name was like a magic formula, like a word from an old tale about an ancient, primeval, moss-grown, troll-inhabited forest. He spelled the word and tried to pronounce the three syllables he had heard Anders Månsson utter; the foreign name had a magic lure; he would not return until he had seen this water.
He reached a rushing stream, which he followed; the creek, with all its turns, indicated the direction he must go. To make doubly sure of his way back, he blazed occasional trees with his ax as he had done all day.
Karl Oskar followed the brook until dusk began to fall. But he had not reached a lake, large or small. Fatigue from the long walk during the hot day overtook him, and he decided to find a place to camp for the night. In the morning he would continue his search for Ki-Chi-Saga. Perhaps the distance was greater than Månsson had guessed, perhaps the brook had led him astray — who knew for sure that it emptied into the lake? But he didn’t think he had gone far since leaving his countrymen, he had walked slowly and been delayed by having to cut his way through thickets.
He sat down to rest on a fallen tree; he ate a slice of bread and some meat and drank water from his container, water he had taken from the spring where the other men were. The landscape was different here, it was now more undulating and open. Should he lie down and sleep under this tree trunk, or should he try to go on? His feet had gone to sleep in his boots, his injured leg ached. Another day would come tomorrow — the land around him would not run away if he rested here for the night.
A flock of birds, large and unfamiliar to him, flew overhead, their wings whizzing in the air. They were quite low, barely above the tree-tops — they slanted their wings and descended and he lost sight of them. He guessed they were water birds — the lake must be near by!
This action of the birds made him decide to go on. After a few hundred paces he reached a knoll with large hardwood trees amid much greenery, behind which daylight shone through. He hurried down a slope and was in an open meadow. Now he could see: the meadow with its tall, rich grass sloped gently toward glittering water; the lake lay in front of him.
At first glimpse he was disappointed: this was only a small lake, it was not the right one. But as he approached he discovered that it was only an arm of a lake. Through a narrow channel it connected with other arms and bays and farther on the water expanded into a vast lake with islands and promontories and channels as far as his eyes could see. He had arrived.
All that he saw agreed with what he had heard — this lake must be Ki-Chi-Saga. Staggering with fatigue, he walked down to inspect it. He must complete his mission before night fell.
The shores had solid banks without any swamps, and he could see sandy beaches. Here and there, the topsoil had clay in it. The stream, his guide, emptied into the west end of the arm, near a stand of tall, slender pines. To the east a tongue of land protruded, overgrown with heavy oaks. A vast field opened to the north between the lake and the forest’s edge, open, fertile ground covered with grass. He went over to inspect the tongue of land with leaf-trees: besides the oaks there were sugar maples, lindens, elms, ash trees, aspens, walnut and hazel trees, and many other trees and bushes he did not recognize. The lake shores were low and easily accessible everywhere. Birds played on the surface of the water splashing, swimming in lines, wriggling about like immense feathered water snakes, and there were ripples and rings from whirling, swirling fins.
Karl Oskar measured the sloping meadow with his eyes. It must be about fifty acres. He supposed a great deal of this ground once had been under water, the lake had at one time been larger. The soil was the fattest mold on clay bottom, the finest earth in existence. He stuck his shovel into the ground — everywhere the topsoil was deep, and in one place he did not find the red clay bottom until he had dug almost three feet down.
Earlier in the day he had seen the next best; he had gone on a little farther, and now he had found the best. He had arrived.
He felt as though this soil had been lying here waiting just for him. It had been waiting for him while he, in another land, had broken stone and more stone, laid it in piles and built fences with it, broken his equipment on it; all the while this earth had waited for him, while he had wasted his strength on roots and stones; his father had labored to pile the stone heaps higher and higher, to build the fences longer and broader, had broken himself on the stones so that now he must hobble along crippled, on a pair of crutches for the rest of his life — while all this earth had been lying here waiting. While his father sacrificed his good healthy legs for the spindly blades that grew among the stones at home, this deep, fertile soil had nurtured wild grass, harvested by no one. It had been lying here useless, sustaining not a soul. This rich soil without a stone in it had lain here since the day it was created, waiting for its tiller.
Now he had arrived.
In the gathering dusk Karl Oskar Nilsson from Korpamoen appraised the location of the land: Northward lay the endless wilderness, a protection against winter winds; to the south the great lake; to the west the fine pine forest; to the east the protruding tongue of land with the heavy oaks. And he himself stood in the open, even meadow, the grass reaching to his waist, hundreds of loads of hay growing about him, covering the finest and most fertile topsoil; he stood there gazing at the fairest piece of land he had seen in all of North America.
Now he needn’t go a step farther. Here lay his fields, there grew the timber for his house, in front of him lay the water with game birds and fish. Here he had fields, forest, and lake in one place. Here things grew and throve and lived and moved in whatever direction he looked — on the ground, in trees and bushes, on land and water.
At last he had found the right spot: this was the place for a farmer’s home. Here he must live. And he would be the first one to raise his house on the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.
He turned left to the stand of oaks and selected the biggest tree he saw. He cut wide marks with his ax; then he took out his red pencil, his timberman’s pencil from home, and wrote on the wood: K. O. Nilsson, Svensk.
This would have to do; if it wasn’t sufficient, he must do it over some other time.The red letters on the white blaze in the oak could be seen a long way and would tell anyone passing by that this place was claimed. Besides, he wasn’t able to do more, not today. After the few cuts with the ax he suddenly felt tired, more tired than he had ever felt in his life. He sank down under the tree, heavily, and laid his pack beside him — his gun, ax, water keg, knapsack, all; he had forced himself to walk a long way, and now he had no more strength, he fell at last under the tree on which he had just printed his name.
He felt he couldn’t move, couldn’t do another thing this evening; he was too tired to make a fire, to gather moss for a bed, to take off his boots, open the knapsack, eat. He was too tired to do anything at all, even to chase away the mosquitoes — he no longer felt their smarting bites. He didn’t care about anything now, he was insensible to everything except the need to rest his body: he stretched out full length on his back, on the ground under the big oak, with his coat as a pillow.