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B. M. Bower
Cabin Fever
(Wild West Adventure)
Adventure Tale of the Wild West
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2017 OK Publishing
ISBN 978-80-272-2059-5
Table of Contents
Chapter One. The Fever Manifests Itself
Chapter Two. Two Make a Quarrel
Chapter Three. Ten Dollars and a Job For Bud
Chapter Four. Head South and Keep Going
Chapter Five. Bud Cannot Perform Miracles
Chapter Six. Bud Takes to the Hills
Chapter Seven. Into the Desert
Chapter Eight. Many Barren Months and Miles
Chapter Nine. The Bite of Memory
Chapter Ten. Emotions are Tricky Things
Chapter Eleven. The First Stages
Chapter Twelve. Marie Takes a Desperate Chance
Chapter Thirteen. Cabin Fever in the Worst Form
Chapter Fourteen. Cash Gets a Shock
Chapter Fifteen. And Bud Never Guessed
Chapter Seventeen. Lovin Child Wriggles In
Chapter Eighteen. They Have Their Troubles
Chapter Nineteen. Bud Faces Facts
Chapter Twenty. Lovin Child Strikes it Rich
Chapter Twenty-One. Marie’s Side of it
Chapter Twenty-Two. The Cure Complete
Chapter One. The Fever Manifests Itself
There is a certain malady of the mind induced by too much of one thing. Just as the body fed too long upon meat becomes a prey to that horrid disease called scurvy, so the mind fed too long upon monotony succumbs to the insidious mental ailment which the West calls “cabin fever.” True, it parades under different names, according to circumstances and caste. You may be afflicted in a palace and call it ennui, and it may drive you to commit peccadillos and indiscretions of various sorts. You may be attacked in a middle-class apartment house, and call it various names, and it may drive you to cafe life and affinities and alimony. You may have it wherever you are shunted into a backwater of life, and lose the sense of being borne along in the full current of progress. Be sure that it will make you abnormally sensitive to little things; irritable where once you were amiable; glum where once you went whistling about your work and your play. It is the crystallizer of character, the acid test of friendship, the final seal set upon enmity. It will betray your little, hidden weaknesses, cut and polish your undiscovered virtues, reveal you in all your glory or your vileness to your companions in exile—if so be you have any.
If you would test the soul of a friend, take him into the wilderness and rub elbows with him for five months! One of three things will surely happen: You will hate each other afterward with that enlightened hatred which is seasoned with contempt; you will emerge with the contempt tinged with a pitying toleration, or you will be close, unquestioning friends to the last six feet of earth—and beyond. All these things will cabin fever do, and more. It has committed murder, many’s the time. It has driven men crazy. It has warped and distorted character out of all semblance to its former self. It has sweetened love and killed love. There is an antidote—but I am going to let you find the antidote somewhere in the story.
Bud Moore, ex-cow-puncher and now owner of an auto stage that did not run in the winter, was touched with cabin fever and did not know what ailed him. His stage line ran from San Jose up through Los Gatos and over the Bear Creek road across the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains and down to the State Park, which is locally called Big Basin. For something over fifty miles of wonderful scenic travel he charged six dollars, and usually his big car was loaded to the running boards. Bud was a good driver, and he had a friendly pair of eyes—dark blue and with a humorous little twinkle deep down in them somewhere—and a human little smiley quirk at the corners of his lips. He did not know it, but these things helped to fill his car.
Until gasoline married into the skylark family, Bud did well enough to keep him contented out of a stock saddle. (You may not know it, but it is harder for an old cow-puncher to find content, now that the free range is gone into history, than it is for a labor agitator to be happy in a municipal boarding house.)
Bud did well enough, which was very well indeed. Before the second season closed with the first fall rains, he had paid for his big car and got the insurance policy transferred to his name. He walked up First Street with his hat pushed back and a cigarette dangling from the quirkiest corner of his mouth, and his hands in his pockets. The glow of prosperity warmed his manner toward the world. He had a little money in the bank, he had his big car, he had the good will of a smiling world. He could not walk half a block in any one of three or four towns but he was hailed with a “Hello, Bud!” in a welcoming tone. More people knew him than Bud remembered well enough to call by name—which is the final proof of popularity the world over.
In that glowing mood he had met and married a girl who went into Big Basin with her mother and camped for three weeks. The girl had taken frequent trips to Boulder Creek, and twice had gone on to San Jose, and she had made it a point to ride with the driver because she was crazy about cars. So she said. Marie had all the effect of being a pretty