Cabin Fever - Page 2/118

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

girl. She habitually wore white middies with blue collar and tie, which

went well with her clear, pink skin and her hair that just escaped being

red. She knew how to tilt her "beach" hat at the most provocative angle,

and she knew just when to let Bud catch a slow, sidelong glance--of the

kind that is supposed to set a man's heart to syncopatic behavior. She

did not do it too often. She did not powder too much, and she had the

latest slang at her pink tongue's tip and was yet moderate in her use of

it.

Bud did not notice Marie much on the first trip. She was demure, and Bud

had a girl in San Jose who had brought him to that interesting stage

of dalliance where he wondered if he dared kiss her good night the

next time he called. He was preoccupiedly reviewing the

she-said-and-then-I-said, and trying to make up his mind whether he

should kiss her and take a chance on her displeasure, or whether he had

better wait. To him Marie appeared hazily as another camper who helped

fill the car--and his pocket--and was not at all hard to look at. It

was not until the third trip that Bud thought her beautiful, and was

secretly glad that he had not kissed that San Jose girl.