“I don’t see anything.”
Hank pointed to a tree.
“Oh, yes, I see it now. It’s a blaze, a different blaze from this trail blaze. Looks as though the person who made it didn’t want it to be too prominent.”
Hank indicated other trees bearing all but imperceptible scars. “Want to take a look?” he asked.
She nodded.
Hank turned his horse down the ridge, following the faint trail.
“Shouldn't you leave a note or something, in case the pack string catches up with us?”
“They’ll see our tracks,” Hank said.
They skirted wide patches of down timber, lost the trail twice on such detours, but eventually picked it up again. Then, without warning, they came to a little clearing and a cabin.
Hank swung down off his horse and dropped the reins to the ground.
Marion looked at the cabin for a moment, then flung herself out of the saddle. “It’s the same cabin that’s in the picture,” she said. “The picture was taken from over there.”
“Let’s take a look around.”
They crossed the little opening and Hank pushed the cabin door open.
Marion stood at his side, looking over the one-room structure.
There was a wood stove of rough iron, two bunks, a table, a rude bench, a row of boxes which had been nailed to the wall so as to form a cupboard and in which were a few dishes, knives, and forks. A frying pan hung from a nail, and there was a large stewpan face down on the stove. The cabin had a dirt floor, but it was cleaner than any abandoned cabin Marion had ever seen. Yet it held that characteristic musty smell which indicated it had been some time since there had been a fire in the stove or since men had slept on the two bunks.
On the table was a kerosene lamp partially filled with kerosene.
“Well,” Hank said, “I guess this is it. You say your brother’s an old-time camper?”
“That's right. He’s done quite a good deal of trapping and prospecting. He didn’t like too much civilization.”
Hank nodded. He took off his hat and scratched the hair around his temples.
“What is it?” she asked. “Anything?”
“No,” Hank said, “I guess it’s okay. Let’s get back to the trail. We'll want to camp right around here somewhere.”
“We could camp in the flat here and use the cabin, couldn’t we?”
“Better not,” Hank said shortly. “Lets go back to the trail and— Hello, what's this?”
Hank was looking at the three boxes which had been nailed to the side of the cabin.
“What is it? I don’t see anything.”
Hank said, “That piece of paper. Looks like the edge of an envelope.”
“Oh, yes, I see it now.”
Hank moved over. His thumb and forefinger gripped the corner of an envelope which had been pushed into a small space between the boxes and the log wall of the cabin.
Marion laughed nervously. “It must be a letter he put there and forgot to mail.”
Hank turned the envelope over and said, “It’s addressed ‘To Whoever Finds This Letter.’ The envelope isn’t sealed. Let’s just take a look.”
Hank pulled the flap of the envelope and took out the single sheet of paper, which was covered on both sides with fine pen-and-ink writing. He spread it out on the table.
Marion, standing at his shoulder, read the letter with him:
My name is Frank Adrian, although until the last few days there was a great deal I couldn’t remember about myself. I am married to Corliss Lathan Adrian, and I will put her address at the bottom of this letter, so the finder may notify her in the event it becomes necessary.
I have been subject to fits of amnesia. Some time ago I had an attack which sent me wandering away from home.
For a while I didn’t know who I was, then I could remember only a part of my life. There was a hiatus following an automobile accident in which I received a blow on the head. However, recently my mind has cleared, and I know now who I am.
For some time I have been engaged in a partnership with a peculiar chap named Harry Benton, a man who is an experienced woodsman, packer, and prospector. We came up here to this cabin to do some prospecting until the weather got cold and then do some trapping.
I have heard something about cabin fever, that peculiar malady which grips two persons who are forced into constant association with each other, until finally they become so thoroughly annoyed and irritated that there is a species of insanity generated.
I had never thought that could happen to me.
I am all right, but my partner, Harry Benton, has developed a bad case of cabin fever. He hates me with an insane, bitter hatred. I think the man is crazy.
A few days ago we had a quarrel over a matter so trivial it seemed absurd to me, but I can see that Benton has become absolutely furious and is brooding over it. I am going to try to leave here, but I am still pretty much of a tenderfoot and it will be a hard trip for me. I feel certain that if Benton finds I have run out on him he will track me down and kill me. Therefore I want to get enough of a head start so he can’t catch up with me.
If the worst should come to the worst and anything should happen, will the finder of this letter please notify my wife.
The letter was signed “Frank Adrian,” and below that was the address of his wife.
Hank looked up at Marion Benton.
“Why, how absolutely absurd!” she exclaimed. “The man must be insane. Harry never was a bit like that.”
“Cabin fever is a peculiar thing,” Hank said. “I’ve seen people that were just as nice as could be. They’d be swell campmates until they got cabin fever and — well, it’s a kind of insanity. You can't—”
“Oh, bosh and nonsense! Harry has camped with people all over the country. He’s been out in the hills as much as you have. It’s absolutely absurd to think of Harry flying off the handle that way.”
“Of course, a tenderfoot is something of a trial to live with,” Hank pointed out. “There are times when just wrangling them gets you to the point where—”
“But, Hank, that’s absolutely foolish. I don’t know why this man wrote that letter, but it’s absurd.”
“Well,” Hank said, “let’s go on back and stop the packtrain. We’ll camp around here somewhere and take a look at the cabin. Everything seems to be all nice and shipshape.”
Marion nodded, too stunned and angry to engage in much conversation.
Hank looked carefully around the place for a while, then said, “Oh... oh, what's this?”
“What?”
Hank turned to one of the walls. Down near the floor were reddish-brown stains which had evidently spattered against the wood in pear-shaped drops, then had dried.
Marion looked at the stains, then raised her eyes to Hank. “Hank, is it—?”
Hank nodded and said, “I guess we’d better close up the place and go get the others...”
It was well along in the afternoon when Marion Chandler Benton, Corliss Adrian, James Dewitt, and Hank Lucas returned to the cabin. In the meantime they had found a camping place and left Kenney and the cook to unpack the horses and make camp. Lucas had briefly described what they had found and had shown the others the letter. Marion had announced to one and all that she was Harry Benton’s sister and had ridiculed the letter.
James Dewitt had accepted the announcement of her relationship to Frank Adrian’s partner without surprise. He had, however, promptly taken sides with Mrs. Adrian.
“You don't suppose Frank Adrian wrote that letter just for fun, do you?” he said.
“He was a tenderfoot,” Marion said. “He wasn’t accustomed to living out in the hills with anyone. Harry was probably a little taciturn, and Frank took it for cabin fever.”