Little Worlds - Almost There

Rob Amberg has had his eyes and ears tuned to the Western North Carolina landscape and
its people since 1973. Rob’s photographs are imbued with his unique perspective as both an “outsider” and an “insider,” and his work in the Asheville Art Museum Collection provides an intimate look at the region as it has changed over the years. Little Worlds, through the beautifully woven tale of words and images, of fact and fiction, importantly adds to the discourse on the veracity of photographs as well as the subjective nature of memories and myths.
—Pamela L. Myers, Executive Director, Asheville Art Museum

Inside front cover of Little Worlds

I leave early Monday morning for Massachusetts to be on press for the final printing of Little Worlds. For those of you who have been following this long-running saga, we expect to have books on hand by the end of May. No one will be more pleased than me to have this book out in the world. To each of you who has contributed to the production of this book, I offer my heartfelt thanks and appreciation. It has truly been a community effort.
I will be posting some images from the printing process at The Studley Press in Dalton, Massachusetts. And if anyone remains interested in purchasing a pre-publication copy of Little Worlds, or talking advantage of the offered rewards, the link to the fundraiser is below.
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds - the Beginnings

People have asked how I came up with the structure of Little Worlds - the intertwining of my fifty years of documentary photographs and journal entries with a fictional story set fifty years in the future.
The documentary photo book model has been in place for close to seventy years. it usually meant a portfolio of images, oral histories and/or narrative writing, perhaps an academic essay explaining the works’ significance. This model has remained intact because of its effectiveness. It works, but I wanted to do something different.
I often told stories with my children as they were growing up. These stories often involved characters from a distant past or an unimaginable future. But the kids also wanted tales of my past life - my travels, my time in Madison County and people I had met.
After a difficult publishing experience with my second book, The New Road, I had vowed to never do another book. It was simply too gut wrenching. But during a long solitary drive out west, I realized I had not finished what I had originally set out to do, which was tell a more complete story of my time in the county.
I began revisiting my journals and stories and the thousands of photographs I had made over my time here. I was reading Octavia Butler’s work at the time, which reminded me of the bedtime stories I told my children. I had never written fiction but I just started writing and soon a story began to take shape. Diana Stoll, my editorial advisor, was instrumental in helping me organize the complimentary narratives.
To remind myself, and viewers, that this is in effect a bedtime story, every chapter in the book begins with a photograph of Kate.
The Little Worlds fundraiser is ongoing. Details are at: https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the book

Little Worlds - BIG NEWS

Kate in my truck, Barnard, 1995.
-from Little Worlds

After seven plus years working on Little Worlds I’m pleased to announce the book is now in the capable hands of The Studley Press in Massachusetts. We’re looking at a publication date of mid to late May.

While it would seem I would be elated by this news, and I am, I’m also gripped by a sense of unease, the knowledge that the book is out of my hands now. It’s done, for better or worse, no more edits, or photo changes, or last minute story additions. All that’s left is the angst from wondering if Little Worlds is any good.

All books are journeys and Little Worlds has certainly proved to be more challenging than my last two. Dealings with publishers, the endless edits and structural changes in the manuscript, the minutiae of the self-publishing process, the fundraising and distribution, all have tested me. Yet there was comfort in those tests - the knowledge that the process was still in my hands. No risk involved.

After my second book, The New Road, I had vowed to never do another book. It had exhausted me. But some years later on a solitary drive out west, I concluded I wanted to do another. I needed to finish what I had started, which was a trilogy of books from Madison County, NC, where I had made my home for fifty years. Now, 22 years after the publication of Sodom Laurel Album and 15 years after The New Road, we will soon have Little Worlds.

I want to thank everyone who has contributed to the making of Little Worlds with generous donations, be they time, money, and goodwill. And to the people of Madison County who have graced me for fifty years with their stories, their images, and their friendships.

The fundraiser for Little Worlds is ongoing and I would encourage anyone who is interested in supporting this project to check out the link below.
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds - author pix survey

One of the more disconcerting decisions to be made when publishing a book is choosing the author photograph. The thoughts and arguments surrounding such a choice are endless: too fat, too thuggish, too calm, pants hang too low, too boring, too mysterious, too me. I decided to give readers a bit of a choice. Here are the four under consideration. All are numbered. I’m not going to identify the photographers as yet. Make your choice. Buy a book.
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

#1

#2

#3

#4

Me, Letojanni

In Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023. ©photo by Titus Heagins 2023.

I think often about place and finding my spot in the world has been a lifelong quest. Where do I belong? Where am I most at ease? Where can I be my best self? Madison County has been that place for most of the last fifty years and I think I landed well.
As with life, photography and writing are equally dependent on finding your spot. Where to stand when making a photograph or to best hear a story is the first, and most elemental, decision I make when photographing or simply listening.
Throughout my life and career, I’ve had the opportunity to visit many places, some of which I’ve thought could become my spot. I’ve studied the landscape, the climate, the size, the people of these places—northern New Mexico, Vermont, Alaska, the Olympic Peninsula—and thought, I could live here. I could photograph here. I could be of this place. But I’ve never left my place in the mountains.
I returned home from a recent trip to Sicily with that familiar urge to make it my own. I had reasons: family history, living relatives I know, a love of the culture, land, and people. The raw emotion of being with family in the place where we began, where our DNA is buried. But perhaps most importantly was being of an age and inclination to appreciate and embrace the slow of the Mediterranean day.
The name Letojanni is often attributed to the Moors who conquered Sicily, as well as, much of 'Europe in the 9th century A.D. They had a favorite horse named Janni and named the town after him. But in Sicilian Letojanni is generally understood to mean happy years and I sense I could be happy there, that it could be my spot.

Janni, Letojanni, Sicily 2023

Please donate to my upcoming book Little Worlds
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Kate, Paw Paw, 2019

Kate, Paw Paw,2019

- from Little Worlds, 2019
I didn’t expect to be in this place as long as I have, but here I am. I married Leslie and raised my two children, Ben and Kate, and discovered and lived a life here. As they were growing up, I told my children stories, mostly at bedtime, about my life before moving to the mountains, as well as memories of my time here. And together we created fictions set in the past or a distant future. The stories were as much invention as real, a curious blend of fact and fantasy.

One story I told Kate—or imagine I told her—envisions our community in a future time, decades from now, when the world is a much different place. The land and people are familiar. Their story is the stuff of life— food and warmth, security, how we communicate and spend our time, our hopes and fears, how we define a life that is at once foreign, yet hidden in our memories. It’s a story we are still writing.

Please consider supporting the publication of Little Worlds through our pre-sale at the link below. In person purchases can be made by contacting me at <robambergphoto@gmail.com>. $55 plus tax.

The fundraiser:
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds - Happy Days were here back then

-from Little Worlds, 2009

I overheard Leonard, one of our neighbors, say the other day, “Well, I guess we’re going to have to vote for that colored boy now.” It reminds me of how much things have changed, yet stayed the same, in the county. That local people would vote for a Black man for president while referring to him as a “colored boy” is enough to make my head spin. But change is elusive, and often forced, and in this case my neighbor would have voted differently had he felt he had a choice. But he would have never voted for a Republican.

Preorder Little Worlds
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds

Lesslie, Bit Pine, 1988

• from Little Worlds
  1988
  Ben and I move over to Leslie’s place, on the south face of our shared mountain. Laura and I are able to sell our thirty acres, and I use my part of the money to build a darkroom and studio a short walk from the house.
  Leslie and I marry in the spring and soon are expecting a child. It’s a happy time. We know the baby will be a girl. Her name will be Kate.
  The house and land are never-ending projects. We make house changes for the baby—replacing leaky windows, installing a spiral staircase to the upstairs where Ben sleeps.
  We’ve cleared more garden space by cutting trees and turning never-plowed ground. We fence in a pasture area awash with multiflora rose, briars, and small saplings, and turn a small herd of goats onto it. We don’t see them for days, but in time we’re left with a cleared field.

Preorder Little Worlds
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Three from Italy

On our recent trip I was reminded how much I love train travel. The reminder happened quickly, about an hour after our departure from Letojanni, when the train was loaded onto a ferry for the short hop across the Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland. I know of no other place that does that.

Ferrying the train across the Strait of Messina, Sicily 2023

But beyond the uniqueness of trains on boats, travel by rail offers many amenities, especially compared to airplanes. Trains are comfortable, spacious really, easy to move around in. The countryside is immediate and available, so close it feels touchable - the Tyrrhenian Sea, Vesuvius, gritty Naples. And your fellow passengers are the same, close, willing to engage, share pictures of their children and ours with them. Ultimately, train travel becomes a welcome part of the journey, a story in itself - not another airport to dread with the crowds, the rush, the tension, so cramped you can barely cross your legs. Modern trains are fast, efficient but they feel slow and relaxed.

Leaving Sicily, 10/2023

Trains lull me. They place me in an unfamiliar dream where my vision abstracts to a mix of reality and fiction. I doze. I wake. I make a picture. I read. I walk to the club car and get an espresso. I make another picture, this one stranger than the last. I could do this forever.

Leaving Naples for Rome, 10/23.

https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds

The Little Worlds fundraiser is still under way. I want to thank the people who have generously contributed so far. We are closer to our goal of $35,000 than we were but still have a ways to go. So, if you’re inclined to purchase the book, or want to take advantage of one of the offered rewards, I’d encourage pre-ordering at the link below. Pre-order demand is a good indicator to the publisher about the number of books to print.Thank you for your interest.
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Home health nurse examining patient, George Roberts, in his home, Big Pine, 1984.

from Little Worlds, 1984
There is some work close to home. I make photographs for a story on rural health care with my friend Millie for a Durham-based journal, Southern Exposure. I spend a couple of days with a home health nurse with the Hot Springs Health Program as she travels the county, meeting with patients who are unable to leave home. It’s an innovative program and serves as a model for rural health care delivery around the country. For county residents it’s made excellent and dependable care available without having to drive to Asheville or east Tennessee.

Little Worlds

Making molasses at Eldon Henderson’s House, Big Pine, 1978.

We volunteer to help our new neighbors make sorghum syrup and spend a long day cutting cane with tobacco knives, stripping the fodder and seed heads from the stalk, and then grinding the stalks through a mill that is powered by a horse. The thin, greenish juice is poured into a long, shallow pan and cooked for hours, changing the liquid into a thick amber syrup. The process goes on into the night. We meet new people—two of them turn out to be Laura’s relatives. Her cousin Nina suggests we take a piece of the ground stalk, dip it in the cook- ing syrup, and suck it dry. That overpowering sweetness, getting to know new people, and a photograph I make, are the best parts of the day.
- from Little Worlds

Little Worlds Fundraiser
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds

Moonflowers, PawPaw.

Our nights are dark and quiet, except for the pair of screech owls calling from either end of the holler or coyotes on top of the mountain yearning for goat. The sky’s alive with stars, and when the moon is full the forest dances with shadows and shapes the daylight doesn’t know. Sometimes, when the baby is asleep, Leslie and I lie in the yard wrapped in a blanket, smoking and sipping, waiting for comets, cuddling in the comfort of dusky light.
- from Little Worlds

LITTLE WORLDS FUNDRAISER

https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds, The Book - Fundraiser

The truck stopped and the stillness woke the boy. They'd been driving all night, one of many dark-of-the-moon trips over the last few weeks, avoiding people, stealing fuel when they could find it to steal, sleeping during the day after hiding the truck, a pistol tucked in the floorboard.

"Where are we, Papa?" Wright asked.

Frank said nothing. He was weary from the road and wary of what they might find. Had he decided right? Would they be safe in this surreal and desolate landscape? Could they survive here? He'd seen outlines of collapsing houses and barns as he drove but no signs of life--no lights, no smoke, nothing stirring. He wondered, Are we the only ones?

"We can't drive any farther," he said to the boy. "The road is blocked, and it looks like the bridge is caved in. I'll tell you about this place as we walk.”

Thus begins Little Worlds, Rob Amberg's third volume in a trilogy of books from Madison County, in the mountains of western North Carolina. 

The first two books of the trilogy - Sodom Laurel Album and The New Road - document through photographs, oral history and narrative writing a traditional agrarian lifestyle and community and its evolution brought on by the construction of a new superhighway, improved access to the outside world, and a changing demographic. 

Little Worlds continues this story of change in Madison County but with a new twist. In many ways it is a traditional documentary photography book that utilizes photographs and journal entries to tell a factual story about aspects of life in Madison County over the last fifty years. But it’s the inclusion of speculative fiction, an imaginative look to a dystopian universe fifty years in the future through eyes from the past that brings the book its innovative energy. 

Writers and photographers shy away from mixing documentary and fiction and Little Worlds is clearly a hybrid. It began as a long-running bedtime story I was telling my children and has grown into a unique volume that includes over 150 color and black/white photographs intertwined with a 62,000 word novel. The first edition will be 1,000 copies.

Because of the unique nature of this book, I am choosing to self-publish. It has been edited by noted editor Diana Stoll and designed by Bonnie Campbell, former lead designer at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Expected publication date is spring, 2024.

I am now fundraising for the book and this is the time to be an early supporter of Little Worlds. Rewards are available for different levels of support ranging from: a signed copy of Little Worlds, postcards, individual photographs, limited edition prints and three portfolios of images from the book.

Thank you for your consideration of this long-awaited project. I hope you’ll join me and Frank and Wright on our journey to Little Worlds.

Rewards

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Tier 1

A signed copy of the book Little Worlds.
$65, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add To Cart

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Tier 2

A signed copy of the book Little Worlds and
five postcards from the book.
$91, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add To Cart

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Tier 3

A signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book and
one signed 8.5” x 11” archival pigment, open edition print chosen from these pages.
$145, tax and shipping included

For example, chose this or any single image from these rewards for your support of Little Worlds.

Quantity:

Add To Cart

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Tier 4

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book,
and one signed 13” x 19” limited edition print, chosen from the book,
printed on Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase. Edition of 10.
Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$750, tax and shipping included

For example, chose this or any single image from these rewards for your support of Little Worlds.

Quantity:

Add To Cart

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Tier 5

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
one 7-print portfolio titled Portraits from Little Worlds. The images are
printed on 8.5” x 11” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$2,625, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add To Cart

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Tier 6

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
One 7-print portfolio titled Land from Little Worlds. The color images are
printed on 13” x 19” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$3,850, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add To Cart

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Tier 7

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
one 7-print portfolio titled Life from Little Worlds. The b/w images are
printed on 13” x 19” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$3,850, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add To Cart

Thank you for your support. - Rob

Thoughts on Sicily Part 1

Sunrise, Letojanni, Sicily, 10/23

We were tired when we got to the Hotel in Letojanni after a long, red-eye flight from Asheville, via Philadelphia, followed by a shorter flight from Rome to Catania, and a shorter still ride from the airport. I don’t remember much after that. I’m sure we ate, probably with Titus and Maureen, maybe at Ciao Ciao.

I woke up early, well before first light and went out on our balcony. The town was quiet except for an occasional car or motorcycle. I dressed and went out, in search of a caffe’ doppia and a chocolate croissant. It becomes a morning ritual and I settle into a small bakery, Il Gabbiano. I sit among old Sicilian men, drinking espresso and smoking tobacco. I watch them as they laugh and tell stories, starting their days, their own ritual. I see something of them in me and can place myself in that picture.

Morning coffee.

We went to the beach every day. By that time I had given up worrying about the get together and party and decided to relax and enjoy myself. Letting go is not my strongest trait, but relax we did. Bruschetta and wine on the beach. Crystal clear water at the perfect temp. Two women walking the beach all day, every day, offering massages and umbrellas to shade us from the Mediterranean sun. It was idyllic, bordering on decadent, but lovely, fun.

Kate seemed to meet everyone on the beach. At one point she walked me over to these two bronzed women who were from Frankfurt and another couple from Marin County, CA., a former Economics professor, my worst subject in college.

Letojanni, Sicily

Caution, potter at play, Letojanni, Sicily, 10/23

Two women from Germany on the beach, Letojanni, Sicily, 10/23.

Food played a role in everything we did. Two hour lunches became the rule. Dinners with twenty that lasted until midnight. And the fish. Mussels, prawns, redfish, swordfish, the best wine, and inexpensive, all. Pasta alla norma, pasta alla vongole were my two favorites. The flaming salt-encrusted fish blended nicely with a Sicilian Dance troupe.

All four photographs from Nino’s restaurant in Letojanni, Sicily, October 2023.

We had the party. I would encourage everyone to check out Bill Mosher’s site, BillyBaba’s Wanderings @ < https://billybaba.com/ >. Go to his October 14 entry for a nice look at the party and follow his site. Bill is a truly amazing 85 year old who travels incessantly. He’s a perceptive observer.

The party, the whole week really, was equally affirming, humbling and unsettling for me. Emotionally and physically draining. The idea of having a birthday party for yourself, and staging it 4,000 miles away in a foreign country, is more than a little audacious and narcissistic. The fact that over 70 people came, both family and friends, is cause for reflection, a look back.

This party was to celebrate my 75th birthday and I wanted to have it at my maternal grandfather’s birthplace in Sicily. My cousin owns a hotel in a small town there and we booked much of it for the party. My grandfather left Sicily with his brother when he was sixteen. He never made it home again and never saw his family after leaving. For me, there was a certain symbolism in being in Sicily. Our grandfather’s three grandsons returning to family ground with our children and grandchildren. Letting him know that while he couldn’t make it back to his family and homeland, we would do it for him.

With the recent passing of my cousin Dolores, I am the oldest member of the American side of our Sicilian family, the Galeanos; I am the patriarch, so to speak. That knowledge heightened my desire to link with the past and offer that same link to other, younger family members.

The Catholic in me asks, “what have I done to deserve this bounty?” I went to Mass the day after the party, my first time in many, many years. Mass is a good place for self doubt and I spent much of the service thinking about the many masses I had attended when I was younger and the effect it had on my life, much of it not positive. Still, I remembered much of the Latin liturgy from my days as an altar boy and the ritual itself was oddly comforting, both familiar and foreign. My cousin once told me that everyone in Italy is Catholic but few people pay attention to its rules.

After mass we went to the cemetery and visited the family crypt that houses our great-grandparent’s remains. Caterina Cicciu and Vincenzo Galeano.

My great-grandparents crypt, Letojanni, Sicily, 2005.

Family members looking at the family crypt, Letojanni, Sicily, October 2023.

My cousin Enzo Costantino talking about different family members who had died, Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023.

Joey Galeano and Audrey DiPiazza at their great, great, great grandparent’s crypt, October, 2023.

Vincent Galeano standing under his great great grandfather’s crypt, Vincenzo Galeano, Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023.

From the left, Enzo Costantino, our Sicilian cousin, my brother Mark, Me, and our cousin, Joe Galeano from Maryland. In Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023. Photo by Kate Amberg

My mother and maybe my grandmother would tell me stories about my grandfather’s family in Sicily. Much of the reason he and his brother left Sicily was because of the rampant poverty gripping the island and the entire south of Italy. Mom remembered while growing up her parents would send care packages back to the old country, much like all immigrant families do. Money, clothing, shoes, towels, sheets. I think this is part of our family’s memory, a link that crosses thousands of miles and five generations.

Thank you Enzo and Margie. You welcomed our entire group and treated us like family. I’m glad you are in our lives.

Janni the horse, Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023

Little Worlds - The Book

From the book, Little Worlds

Frank would often return from his treks with a rabbit or turkey they would turn into a stew. He would speak of seeing abandoned houses and barns with no signs of life, shrouded with trees and vines, much like their house had been when they first arrived.

One day, he returned late, worried, saying he had seen more footprints. “There were three or four people, and I followed the tracks to an old house way back in the woods. Someone had been living there. Inside, the cabin was ransacked. I don’t know what they were looking for. There was a small bedroom off the main room and that’s where I found the bodies. Two old people, shot dead, their bodies partially eaten. I buried them behind the house.”

Little Worlds - The Book, from 1983

-from Little Worlds

We rent an old warehouse space on the third floor of a building across from the courthouse. Our large open room is filthy and in need of rewiring and plumbing. There’s no heat or cooling. The county jail is right behind us, and there’s a lawyer on the floor below us and a game room below him.

Marshall is small, contained on one side by the river and the other side by a mountain. There are people on the street during the day: shopping, banking, brokering real estate, or sitting on the benches in front of the courthouse. One of Laura’s cousins owns a home-furnishings store here. There is a library, and the librarian has asked me to hang my pictures in the front window.

But the town has been on a downhill slide since it was bypassed by a new road in the late 1960s. Shuttered buildings are becoming more prevalent, and ours is the first new business in town in many years. Old people talk about the time before the bypass and I-40, when the town was on the most direct route between Asheville and Knoxville. Then, it was so busy there wasn’t room on the sidewalk for everyone. For me, it’s funny and unsettling to think about trying to figure out my life in a dying town.

Little Worlds - The Book, from 1981

I agree to help a neighbor pick tomatoes. I’ll be minimally paid, but I’m mainly
working for the community connection and the bond it creates. I need to know I can do the work. Also, I can take all the tomatoes I want, and Laura and I can dozens of quarts for the winter.

Pickin’ maters is a hot and dirty job. The tomatoes are covered with a fine
chemical dust that soon coats my hands and starts me sneezing and coughing and itching. It takes the morning for six of us to pick the acre of fruit. The man’s wife fixes dinner for all of us, and we spend the afternoon cleaning and packing the tomatoes.

Little Worlds - The Book

The next morning, after eating and banking the fire, Frank and Wright started down the driveway, wanting to follow their memories of footprints and fleeting smoke. “I’ve been avoiding this,” Frank said. “But we need to know who’s out there. Bring your bag and some food. No telling how long we’ll be gone.”

The road was still a tangle. The truck was still sitting where they had left it, but they were reminded of the need to deal with it. The footprints had washed away with recent rains, but their stone piling was intact. Standing next to it was a shorter piling, an invitation, a warning, a sign of something. They followed their recollections to a narrow opening, shielded from view by a thatch of thick vine and brush. It was barely a trail, not often used, but clear in its direction. Level ground at first, the path soon became a steady incline with outcroppings of rock lining it.

Little Worlds - The Book from 1974

Now I’m staying with new friends on their farm north of Asheville. I agree to help with their tobacco and pepper crops in exchange for a dry place in their tobacco-casing house. I have no farm skills and feel pretty useless. I’m convinced my body isn’t made for hard physical work, and I do less than my share.

I do make a couple of nice pictures, one a photograph of Mac plowing with his mule that I especially like. But the reality is I’m floundering and very unsettled. I have hardly enough money for film.

Little Worlds - The Book

“I don’t know what to do about the truck,” Frank said as they walked down the
road to gather the last of their stuff. “It will take forever to get it to the house, and
it won’t do us much good if we can’t find fuel. I’m worried someone will see it and
make their way up to our place.”

As they approached the truck, Wright was the first to notice the footprints in
the rain-softened earth. They came from the opposite direction, one they hadn’t
explored. “Who do you think this is?” he asked nervously.

“I don’t know,” Frank answered. “Could be most anyone. Whoever it is, he
knows we’re here. All the more reason to carry one of those pistols when we’re
away from the camp. One thing though, he didn’t bother anything, just had a look
around. That tells us something.”