There was almost a magic power in Kit Carson’s calmness.  He had a piercing eye, before whose glance many would quail.  There was an indescribable something in his soft words, which indicated that they came from a lion-like heart.  The whole company of trappers looked on in perfect silence, curious to see what would be the result of this bold movement.

Shunan at first, the herculean bully, looked down upon his fragile opponent, with much of the contempt with which Goliath contemplated David.  But apparently that glance showed him that he had encountered no ordinary foe.  The reputation also of Kit Carson, as an able and fearless man extended through the whole encampment.  There was a moment of perfect silence, Shunan not uttering one word in reply.  He then turned upon his heel and walked rapidly across the plain towards his camp.  Carson and the mountaineers understood perfectly what this meant.  He had gone to seize his rifle, mount his horse, and shoot Kit Carson for defying him.

Carson also turned his steps towards his own lodge.  He took a loaded pistol, bestrode his horse, and saw Shunan riding down towards him rifle in hand.  All this had occupied but a few minutes.  Still it had arrested the attention of nearly the whole encampment.  It was well known that when Carson and Shunan should meet on the hostile field, there was to be no vulgar rough and tussle fight, but a decisive conflict which would settle forever the question, whether the one or the other was to be master.  The common law of the wilderness demanded only, that the parties should be left to settle the question in their own way.

Kit Carson always rode a magnificent horse.  He bestrode his steed as if he were a part of the animal, and seemed as unembarrassed in his movements when in the saddle, as when on the floor of his tent.  Rapidly he rode down upon Shunan until the heads of their horses nearly touched.  Calmly he inquired, as if it were one of the most ordinary occurrences of life.

“Am I the person you are looking for?” The treacherous bully answered, “No,” hoping thus, in some degree, to throw his opponent off his guard; but at the same instant, he brought his rifle to his shoulder with the muzzle not four feet from the heart of his intended victim.  The life of Carson depended upon the fraction of a moment.  We call him a lucky man; we should rather say, he was a wise man prepared for every emergency.  His pistol was in his hand, cocked and primed.  Quick as a flash, it was raised, not at the heart, but at the right arm of the insolent bully, whom he would bring to order.