Rugged granite outcroppings showed on the bare crests of hills, glowing dull red in the face of cliffs above the timber growth of the valley floor. Colt followed a deep stream along the valley into town, amazed at the sight of farmhouses constructed of stone with loopholes built to permit rifle fire against Indians. Founded in the 1840s by German immigrants, Karlsburg was a clannish, thoroughly German town. The granite and limestone outcroppings in the encircling hills suggested a permanency reflected in the thick-walled limestone houses, mellowed to amber by the sun. Colt knew little of this German community except that the people were a tenacious lot who continued on even after the Comanche reduced their numbers considerably in 1846. In 1847 an epidemic took 150 of their remaining 600 settlers. In that year their leader negotiated a tenuous peace with the Comanche. And now they were threatened by the Crowder gang. When Fort Martin Scott was established on Baron’s Creek, it furnished not only protection but a ready cash market for their produce.
