Cabin Fever

ugar. "O-oh, boy!" he ejaculated gleefully when he set his teeth into biscuit and hot hamburger. Leaning back luxuriously in the big car, he ate and drank until he could eat

e had still half an hour to wait, and he buttoned on the curtains of the car, since a wind from across the bay was sending the drizzle slantwise; moreover

ther banana, thinking lazily that he wished he owned this car. For the first time in many a day his mind was not filled and boiling over with his trouble. Marie and

sengers for the last boat to the City whose wall of stars was hidden behind the drizzle and the clinging fog. People came straggling down the sidewalk-not many, for few had b

I gave him." Bud felt some one step hurriedly upon the running board. The tonneau door was y

e door, and he jerked the gear lever into low. His foot came

other man was fumbling the side curtains, swearing un

?" Foster's voice was

e th

best. And keep going, till I tell

les. Extra gallon of oil in the car. What

now any. They might get quic

t to me,

to a mess of street-improvement litter, and have to back trail around it. He held the car to a hurry-home pace that was well within the law, and worked into the direct route to Hayward. He sensed that either Foster or his friend turned frequently to look back through the square

heeded to his ears, the closed curtains pr

nce. "Better than if he was in on it." He d

next," the fr

oster grunted. "The trick's

ving through his mind. The mechanics of handling the big car and getting the best speed out of her with the least effort and risk, the tearing away of the last link of his past happiness and his grief; the feeling that thi

t to behold. The only clean spot was on the windshield, where Bud had reached around once or twice with a handful of waste

d her some oil-and it wouldn't hurt to fill the gas tank again. These heavy roa

know?" Foster snapped, j

th your own car-and ga

sked?" Foster yawned alou

Do you want breakfast here, or don't you? I've got

drive to a drug store and buy a couple of thermos bottles, and after that he could go to the nearest restaurant and get

f eating his own breakfast at the counter in the restau

like that. The curtains were buttoned down tight, and he thought amusedly of the two men huddled inside, shivering and hungry, yet refusing to come in and get warmed up with a decent breakfast. Foster, he thought, must certainly be scared of his wife, if he daren't show himself in this little rube town. For the

rmed and once more filled with a sense of well-being, Bud made himself a cigarette before the lunch was ready, and with his arms full of food he went out and across the street. Just before he reached the car one of the thermos bottles started t

couldn't you fake up a mileage? Eve

The simp ain't next to any

mistake of thinking

andily smoke, and when he returned to the car he went muttering disapproving remarks about the rain and the mud and the bottles. He poked his head under the front curtain and into a glum silence. The two men leane

holding out a small gold piece between his gloved thumb and finger.

re to detain them there, he kicked some of the mud off his feet, scraped off the rest on the edge of the running board and clim

le into an eager mouth. Bud laid an arm along the back of his seat and waited, his

tranger gurgled

er. "You shut up, Me

tte

rtest trail for Yuma,

ingly, but somewhat diverted and consoled, Bud fancied, by the sandwiches and coffee-and the

, its smooth, effortless speed, its ease of handling. He had driven too long and too constantly to tire easily, and he was almo

hether father-in-law had not bought it, after all. Now that he began thinking from a different angle, he remembered that father-in-law had behaved very much like the proud possessor of a new car. It really did not look plausible that he would come out in

e was too actively resentful of his own mother-in-law. He was not sure but he might have done something of the sort himself, if his mother-in-law had

g to be any trouble about the car, he might be involved beyond the point of comfort. After all, he did not know Foster, and he had no

into a mental eddy where his own affairs offered no new impulse toward emotion, he turned over and over in his mind the mysterious trip he w

e wouldn't be long, and crawled out into the rain. At the open doorway of the garage he turned and looked at the car. No, it certainly did not look in the least like the machine he had driven down to the Oakland

and put into his pocket. He had glanced through its feature news, and had read hastily one front-page article that had n

thief-or thieves. For no longer than two or three minutes, it seemed, the lights had been off, and it was thought that the raiders had used the interval of darkness to move the mirrors i

ption: DARING THIEF STEALS COSTLY CAR, to learn that a certain rich man of Oakland had lost his new automobile. The address of the bereaved man had been given, and Bud's heart h

o the car, climbed in, and drove on to the south, just as matter-of-factly as though he had not ju