Cabin Fever

h. Poor little devils-say, Cash, they look like hard sleddin', and that's

say report of the Burro Lode, and his look was not pleasant. "But it'll cos

-" Bud cast a glum glance at

ng ledge, too. Like some people, though. Most all its go

onically, but with the whimsical quirk withal, "if it was

do you make

Cash, that colt's just about all in. Cora's nothing but a bag of

the sky glared a brassy blue with never a could. Over a low ridge came Monte and Pete, walking with heads drooping. Their hip bones lifted above their ridged paunches, their backbones, peake

eculatively, as though he was measuring

l we struck better feed. And pack

eport. "Such as she is, we've done all we can do to the Burro Lode, for a year at least," he said. "The assessment work is all

We can get outa here and go

" He looked at the near hills, and at the desert, and at the dreary ma

ked at t

. "We could take it easy, traveling when it's coolest

hance of interesting capital to the extent of developing the claim on a large enough scale to make it profitable. It's too long a haul to take the ore out, and it's too spotted to justify any great investment in mach

ven radishes and three hunches of lettuce and pull out-

, seven radishes can't stop me. No, nor a

stock. I'm going to give 'em all a feed of rolled oats, Cash. We can get along without, and they've got to have something to put a little h

I've made up my mind about

up the burros and their two saddle horses. And as he went, for the first time

ros shuffling single file along the dim trail which was the short cut through the hills to the Bend, Ed taking the lead, with the camp kitchen wabbling lumpily on his b

hat they must go. Months they had spent with the desert, learning well every little varying mood; cursing it for its blistering heat and its sand storms and its parched thirst and its utter

etted the thirsty death of his radishes and lettuce which he had planted and tended with such optimistic care. Bud wondered if Daddy might not stray half-starved into the shack, and find them gone. While they were there, he

n on the surface. Cash's "enormous black ledge" had shown less and less gold as they went into it, though it still seemed worth while, if they had the capital to develop it further. W

ated it, and worked out the assessment for the widow. Cash had her check for all they had earned

ong as he could carry pick and pan. They would prospect as long as their money held out. When that was gone, they would get more and go on prospecting. But they would prospect in a green country where

in to the trail, traveling as lightly as they could, with food for themselves and grain for the stock to last them until they reached Need

opening of spring they outfitted again and took the trail, their goal the high mountains south of Honey Lake. They did not hurry. Wherever the land they traveled through seemed to

rospected every gulch that showed any mineral signs at all. It was a carefree kind of life, with just enough of variety to hold Bud's interest to the adventuring. The nomad in him responded easily to this leisurely pilgrimage. There was no stampede a

pendence and the joy of living. The burros and the two horses were luxuries, he declared. When they once got located on a good claim they would sell off everything but a couple of burros-Sway and Ed, most likely. The others would bring e

e place more or less precariously with civilization, and every day-unless there was a washout somewhere, or a snowslide, or drifts too deep-a train passed over th

y into the hills. Cash watched them for a day or so; saw the size of their grubstakes, asked few questions and listened to a good deal of small-town gossip, and

ht flour and bacon and beans and coffee, and added other things quite as

with forest, they came, after much wandering, upon an old log cabin whose dirt roof still held in spite of the snows that heaped upon it through many a winter. The le

rned, an old abandoned claim. Abandoned chiefly because the old miner who had lived there died one day, and left behind him all the marks of having di

the upper story, old Nelson was. I guess he just stayed there because he happened to light there and didn't have gumption enough to git out. Hills is full of old fellers like him. They live off to the'rselves, and peck around and git a pocket now and then that keeps '

ay. Any game ar

weasels up to bear and mountain lion. If you want

and a crosscut saw and some wedges and a double-bitted axe, and settled down in Nelson F