Cabin Fever by B. M. Bower (best ebook reader .TXT) 📗

change. What was left over—and that was the three dollars and twenty cents—he tossed into the can of tobacco on a shelf.

“We'll let that ride—to sober up on, if we go broke,” he grunted. “Come on—let's get action.”

Action, of a sort, they proceeded to get. Luck brought luck of the same complexion. They won in fluctuating spells of good cards and judicious teamwork. They did not cheat, though Frank was ready if Bud had led him that way. Frank was ready for anything that Bud suggested. He drank when Bud drank, went from the first saloon to the one farther down and across the street, returned to the first with cheerful alacrity and much meaningless laughter when Bud signified a desire to change. It soothed Bud and irritated him by turns, this ready acquiescence of Frank's. He began to take a malicious delight in testing that acquiescence. He began to try whether he could not find the end of Frank's endurance in staying awake, his capacity for drink, his good nature, his credulity—he ran the scale of Frank's various qualifications, seeking always to establish a well-defined limitation somewhere.

But Frank was utterly, absolutely plastic. He laughed and drank when Bud suggested that they drink. He laughed and played whatever game Bud urged him into. He laughed and agreed with Bud when Bud made statements to test the credulity of anyman. He laughed and said, “Sure. Let's go!” when Bud pined for a change of scene.

On the third day Bud suddenly stopped in the midst of a game of pool which neither was steady enough to play, and gravely inspected the chalked end of his cue.

“That's about enough of this,” he said. “We're drunk. We're so drunk we don't know a pocket from a prospect hole. I'm tired of being a hog. I'm going to go get another drink and sober up. And if you're the dog Fido you've been so far, you'll do the same.” He leaned heavily upon the table, and regarded Frank with stern, bloodshot blue eyes.

Frank laughed and slid his cue the length of the table. He also leaned a bit heavily. “Sure,” he said. “I'm ready, any time you are.”

“Some of these days,” Bud stated with drunken deliberation, “they'll take and hang you, Frank, for being such an agreeable cuss.” He took Frank gravely by the arm and walked him to the bar, paid for two beers with almost his last dollar, and, still holding Frank firmly, walked him out of doors and down the street to Frank's cabin. He pushed him inside and stood looking in upon him with a sour appraisement.

“You are the derndest fool I ever run across—but at that you're a good scout too,” he informed Frank. “You sober up now, like I said. You ought to know better 'n to act the way you've been acting. I'm sure ashamed of you, Frank. Adios—I'm going to hit the trail for camp.” With that he pulled the door shut and walked away, with that same circumspect exactness in his stride which marks the drunken man as surely as does a stagger.

He remembered what it was that had brought him to town—which is more than most men in his condition would have done. He went to the post office and inquired for mail, got what proved to be the assayer's report, and went on. He bought half a dozen bananas which did not remind him of that night when he had waited on the Oakland pier for the mysterious Foster, though they might have recalled the incident vividly to mind had he been sober. He had been wooing forgetfulness, and for the time being he had won.

Walking up the steep, winding trail that led to Nelson Flat cleared a little his fogged brain. He began to remember what it was that he had been fighting to forget. Marie's face floated sometimes before him, but the vision was misty and remote, like distant woodland seen through the gray film of a storm. The thought of her filled him with a vague discomfort now when his emotions were dulled by the terrific strain he had wilfully put upon brain and body. Resentment crept into the foreground again. Marie had made him suffer. Marie was to blame for this beastly fit of intoxication. He did not love Marie—he hated her. He did not want to see her, he did not want to think of her. She had done nothing for him but bring him trouble. Marie, forsooth! (Only, Bud put it in a slightly different way.)

Halfway to the flat, he met Cash walking down the slope where the trail seemed tunneled through deep green, so thick stood the young spruce. Cash was swinging his arms in that free stride of the man who has learned how to walk with the least effort. He did not halt when he saw Bud plodding slowly up the trail, but came on steadily, his keen, blue-gray eyes peering sharply from beneath his forward tilted hat brim. He came up to within ten feet of Bud, and stopped.

“Well!” He stood eyeing Bud appraisingly, much as Bud had eyed Frank a couple of hours before. “I was just starting out to see what had become of you,” he added, his voice carrying the full weight of reproach that the words only hinted at.

“Well, get an eyeful, if that's what you come for. I'm here—and lookin's cheap.” Bud's anger flared at the disapproval he read in Cash's eyes, his voice, the set of his lips.

But Cash did not take the challenge. “Did the report come?” he asked, as though that was the only matter worth discussing.

Bud pulled the letter sullenly from his pocket and gave it to Cash. He stood moodily waiting while Cash opened and read and returned it.

“Yeah. About what I thought—only it runs lighter in gold, with a higher percentage of copper. It'll pay to go on and see what's at bed rock. If the copper holds up to this all along, we'll be figuring on the gold to pay for getting the copper. This is copper country, Bud. Looks like we'd found us a copper mine.” He turned and walked on beside Bud. “I dug in to quite a rich streak of sand while you was gone,” he volunteered after a silence. “Coarse gold, as high as fifteen cents a pan. I figure we better work that while the weather's good, and run our tunnel in on this other when snow comes.”

Bud turned his head and looked at Cash intently for a minute. “I've been drunker'n a fool for three days,” he announced solemnly.

“Yeah. You look it,” was Cash's dry retort, while he stared straight ahead, up the steep, shadowed trail.