It is the crystallizer of character, the acid
test of friendship, the final seal set upon enmity. It will betray your
little, hidden weaknesses, cut and polish your undiscovered virtues,
reveal you in all your glory or your vileness to your companions in
exile--if so be you have any.

If you would test the soul of a friend, take him into the wilderness
and rub elbows with him for five months! One of three things will surely
happen: You will hate each other afterward with that enlightened hatred
which is seasoned with contempt; you will emerge with the contempt
tinged with a pitying toleration, or you will be close, unquestioning
friends to the last six feet of earth--and beyond. All these things will
cabin fever do, and more. It has committed murder, many's the time. It
has driven men crazy. It has warped and distorted character out of all
semblance to its former self. It has sweetened love and killed love.
There is an antidote--but I am going to let you find the antidote
somewhere in the story.

Bud Moore, ex-cow-puncher and now owner of an auto stage that did not
run in the winter, was touched with cabin fever and did not know what
ailed him. His stage line ran from San Jose up through Los Gatos and
over the Bear Creek road across the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains
and down to the State Park, which is locally called Big Basin. For
something over fifty miles of wonderful scenic travel he charged six
dollars, and usually his big car was loaded to the running boards. Bud
was a good driver, and he had a friendly pair of eyes--dark blue and
with a humorous little twinkle deep down in them somewhere--and a human
little smiley quirk at the corners of his lips. He did not know it, but
these things helped to fill his car.

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