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157 pages

English

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Many of James Oliver Curwood's action-adventure novels follow intrepid explorers who are equal parts foolish and brave as they make their way in the wilds of northern Canada. In The Courage of Marge O'Doone, a chance encounter on a train turns into the adventure of a lifetime for two audacious souls. Will the pair be able to make it back alive?

Sujets

Adventure (Guyana)

Adventure

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 octobre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775561682
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE
* * *
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

*
The Courage of Marge O'Doone First published in 1918 ISBN 978-1-77556-168-2 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter XXV Chapter XXVI Chapter XXVII
Chapter I
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If you had stood there in the edge of the bleak spruce forest, with thewind moaning dismally through the twisting trees—midnight of deepDecember—the Transcontinental would have looked like a thing of fire;dull fire, glowing with a smouldering warmth, but of strange ghostlinessand out of place. It was a weird shadow, helpless and without motion,and black as the half-Arctic night save for the band of illuminationthat cut it in twain from the first coach to the last, with a space likean inky hyphen where the baggage car lay. Out of the North came armiesof snow-laden clouds that scudded just above the earth, and with theseclouds came now and then a shrieking mockery of wind to taunt thisstricken creation of man and the creatures it sheltered—men and womenwho had begun to shiver, and whose tense white faces stared withincreasing anxiety into the mysterious darkness of the night that hunglike a sable curtain ten feet from the car windows.
For three hours those faces had peered out into the night. Many of theprisoners in the snowbound coaches had enjoyed the experience somewhatat first, for there is pleasing and indefinable thrill to unexpectedadventure, and this, for a brief spell, had been adventure de luxe.There had been warmth and light, men's laughter, women's voices, andchildren's play. But the loudest jester among the men was now silent,huddled deep in his great coat; and the young woman who had clapped herhands in silly ecstasy when it was announced that the train wassnowbound was weeping and shivering by turns. It was cold—so cold thatthe snow which came sweeping and swirling with the wind was likegranite-dust; it clicked, clicked, clicked against the glass—abombardment of untold billions of infinitesimal projectiles fighting tobreak in. In the edge of the forest it was probably forty degrees belowzero. Within the coaches there still remained some little warmth. Theburning lamps radiated it and the presence of many people added to it.But it was cold, and growing colder. A gray coating of congealed breathcovered the car windows. A few men had given their outer coats to womenand children. These men looked most frequently at their watches. Theadventure de luxe was becoming serious.
For the twentieth time a passing train-man was asked the same question.
"The good Lord only knows," he growled down into the face of the youngwoman whose prettiness would have enticed the most chivalrous attentionfrom him earlier in the evening. "Engine and tender been gone threehours and the divisional point only twenty miles up the line. Shouldhave been back with help long ago. Hell, ain't it?"
The young woman did not reply, but her round mouth formed a quick andsilent approbation of his final remark.
"Three hours!" the train-man continued his growling as he went on withhis lantern. "That's the hell o' railroading it along the edge of theArctic. When you git snowed in you're snowed in , an' there ain't notwo ways about it!"
He paused at the smoking compartment, thrust in his head for a moment,passed on and slammed the door of the car after him as he went into thenext coach.
In that smoking compartment there were two men, facing each other acrossthe narrow space between the two seats. They had not looked up when thetrain-man thrust in his head. They seemed, as one leaned over toward theother, wholly oblivious of the storm.
It was the older man who bent forward. He was about fifty. The hand thatrested for a moment on David Raine's knee was red and knotted. It wasthe hand of a man who had lived his life in struggling with thewilderness. And the face, too, was of such a man; a face coloured andtoughened by the tannin of wind and blizzard and hot northern sun, witheyes cobwebbed about by a myriad of fine lines that spoke of years spentunder the strain of those things. He was not a large man. He was shorterthan David Raine. There was a slight droop to his shoulders. Yet abouthim there was a strength, a suppressed energy ready to act, a zestfuleagerness for life and its daily mysteries which the other and youngerman did not possess. Throughout many thousands of square miles of thegreat northern wilderness this older man was known as Father Roland, theMissioner.
His companion was not more than thirty-eight. Perhaps he was a year ortwo younger. It may be that the wailing of the wind outside, the strangevoices that were in it and the chilling gloom of their littlecompartment made of him a more striking contrast to Father Roland thanhe would have been under other conditions. His eyes were a clear andsteady gray as they met Father Roland's. They were eyes that one couldnot easily forget. Except for his eyes he was like a man who had beensick, and was still sick. The Missioner had made his own guess. And now,with his hand on the other's knee, he said:
"And you say—that you are afraid—for this friend of yours?"
David Raine nodded his head. Lines deepened a little about his mouth.
"Yes, I am afraid." For a moment he turned to the night. A fiercervolley of the little snow demons beat against the window, as though hispale face just beyond their reach stirred them to greater fury. "I havea most disturbing inclination to worry about him," he added, andshrugged his shoulders slightly.
He faced Father Roland again.
"Did you ever hear of a man losing himself?" he asked. "I don't mean inthe woods, or in a desert, or by going mad. I mean in the otherway—heart, body, soul; losing one's grip, you might call it, untilthere was no earth to stand on. Did you?"
"Yes—many years ago—I knew of a man who lost himself in that way,"replied the Missioner, straightening in his seat. "But he found himselfagain. And this friend of yours? I am interested. This is the firsttime in three years that I have been down to the edge of civilization,and what you have to tell will be different—vastly different from whatI know. If you are betraying nothing would you mind telling me hisstory?"
"It is not a pleasant story," warned the younger man, "and on such anight as this—"
"It may be that one can see more clearly into the depths of misfortuneand tragedy," interrupted the Missioner quietly.
A faint flush rose into David Raine's pale face. There was something ofnervous eagerness in the clasp of his fingers upon his knees.
"Of course, there is the woman," he said.
"Yes—of course—the woman."
"Sometimes I haven't been quite sure whether this man worshipped thewoman or the woman's beauty," David went on, with a strange glow in hiseyes. "He loved beauty. And this woman was beautiful, almost toobeautiful for the good of one's soul, I guess. And he must have lovedher, for when she went out of his life it was as if he had sunk into ablack pit out of which he could never rise. I have asked myself often ifhe would have loved her if she had been less beautiful—even quiteplain, and I have answered myself as he answered that question, in theaffirmative. It was born in him to worship wherever he loved at all. Herbeauty made a certain sort of completeness for him. He treasured that.He was proud of it. He counted himself the richest man in the worldbecause he possessed it. But deep under his worship of her beauty heloved her . I am more and more sure of that, and I am equally surethat time will prove it—that he will never rise again with his old hopeand faith out of that black pit into which he sank when he came face toface with the realization that there were forces in life—in natureperhaps, more potent than his love and his own strong will."
Father Roland nodded.
"I understand," he said, and he sank back farther in his corner by thewindow, so that his face was shrouded a little in shadow. "This otherman loved a woman, too. And she was beautiful. He thought she was themost beautiful thing in the world. It is great love that makes beauty."
"But this woman—my friend's wife—was so beautiful that even the eyesof other women were fascinated by her. I have seen her when it seemedshe must have come fresh from the hands of angels; and at first, when myfriend was the happiest man in the world, he was fond of telling herthat it must have been the angels who put the colour in her face and thewonderful golden fires in her shining hair. It wasn't his love for herthat made her beautiful. She was beautiful."
"And her soul?" softly questioned the shadowed lips of the Missioner.
The other's hand tightened slowly.
"In making her the angels forgot a soul, I guess," he said.
"Then your friend did not love her." The Little Missioner's voice wasquick and decisive. "There can be no love where there is no soul."
"That is impossible. He did love her. I know it."
"I still disagree with you. Without knowing your friend, I say that heworshipped her beauty. There were others who worshipped that sameloveliness—others who did not possess her, and who would have barteredtheir souls for her had they possessed souls to barter. Is t