The Adventures of Curly Joe And Pete

We climbed the ridge and looked down the other side.  Sure enough a small cabin could be seen close to the tree line.   

“Look, Curly Joe,” Pete exclaimed with excitement.  “There’s a little cabin over there.  Let’s go check it out.”

We ran down the side of the ridge and made our way to the cabin.  It appeared to be a single room.  It had a door in the middle and a window on each side of the door.  The other three walls were solid with no openings of any kind.  As we got closer, we could see that the door was hanging wide open on one hinge.  The windows were also open and didn’t have any glass or curtains covering them. 

“This must be the squatter’s cabin,” Pete proclaimed.  “It doesn’t look dangerous to me.  What do you think, Curly Joe?” 

I barked a couple of times in agreement. 

We walked around the cabin several times and checked out every inch of it.  Pete looked through the windows and I peeked through the doorway.  We could see a small bed made of timbers along the back of the room.  Along the left wall was a small table and chair, also made of logs.  Nothing else was in the cabin.  We stood at the doorway and stared.  Then we looked at each other as if to ask permission to enter.     

“I wonder if we should go inside?” Pete finally asked.  “Mr. Friedan told us not to enter it.  He said that we would disappear if we did.  Let’s test it out, Curly Joe.  I’m going to toss a rock inside and see what happens to it.” 

Pete found a large rock and tossed it through the doorway.  It landed in the middle of the room and came to rest beside the bed.  We stared at it for quite some time.  The rock did not disappear.  I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.  I could tell by the expression on Pete’s face that he was also disappointed. 

Pete decided to try it again.  He tossed another rock through the door and watched it land next to the chair.  We watched it carefully hoping that it would disappear.  However, it did not.   

“I’m going inside, Curly Joe,” Pete finally announced.  “I think Mr. Friedan was just playing with me.  Come on.  Let’s go inside and prove that Mr. Friedan’s legend is just a hoax.” 

Pete approached the doorway and entered the cabin.  I followed close behind.  I didn’t want to lose him just in case the legend was for real.  I was already lost in these woods and I was counting on the fact that Pete would find our way back.  I certainly didn’t want to be left alone.

The cabin was a little boring inside.  There certainly wasn’t much to see.  Pete looked out each window and laughed at Mr. Friedan.  As far as we could tell, we had not disappeared.  The woods looked exactly the same from each window. 

Pete examined the log walls and pointed out the various worm holes in each log. 

“This must be a very old cabin,” Pete explained.  “You can see that a lot of it is slowly rotting away.” 

I barked in agreement as I slowly turned around. 

“Well we certainly didn’t disappear, Curly Joe,” Pete finally exclaimed.  “We might as well head back to the house before the Friedans get up.  I don’t want them to find you missing.”

Pete left the cabin first and I followed right behind.  As soon as we passed through the door, the woods seemed to vanish into thin air.  We found ourselves standing in a large meadow filled with hundreds of wildflowers.  It appeared that we were in a mountain valley.  As we turned to survey the area, we could see tall mountains in every direction.  Many of them had snow-capped peaks. 

“Wow!” said Pete in total astonishment.  “Where are we?”