Isobel

Isobel

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Isobel, by James Oliver Curwood (#11 in our series by James Oliver Curwood)
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Title: Isobel
Author: James Oliver Curwood
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6715] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on January 19, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: Latin1
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Isobel
A Romance of the Northern Trail
by James Oliver Curwood, 1913
TO CARLOTTA WHO IS WITH ME AND TO VIOLA WHO FILLS FOR ME A DREAM OF THE FUTURE I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THIS BOOK
I
THE MOST TERRIBLE THING IN THE WORLD
At Point Fullerton, one thousand miles straight north of civilization, Sergeant William MacVeigh wrote with the stub end of a pencil between his fingers the last words of his semi-annual report to the Commissioner of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police at Regina.
He concluded:
"I beg to say that I have made every effort to run down Scottie Deane, the murderer. I have not given up hope of finding him, but I believe that he has gone from my territory and is probably now somewhere within the limits of the Fort Churchill patrol. We have hunted the country for three hundred miles south along the shore of Hudson's Bay to Eskimo Point, and as far north as Wagner Inlet. Within three months we have made three patrols west of the Bay, unraveling sixteen hundred miles without finding our man or word of him. I respectfully advise a close watch of the patrols south of the Barren Lands."
"There!" said MacVeigh aloud, straightening his rounded shoulders with a groan of relief. "It's done."
From his bunk in a corner of the little wind and storm beaten cabin which represented Law at the top end of the earth Private Pelliter lifted a head wearily from his sick bed and said: "I'm bloomin' glad of it, Mac. Now mebbe you'll give me a drink of water and shoot that devilish huskie that keeps howling every now and then out there as though death was after me."
"Nervous?" said MacVeigh, stretching his strong young frame with another sigh of satisfaction. "What if you had to write this twice a year?" And he pointed at the report.
"It isn't any longer than the letters you wrote to that girl of yours--"
Pelliter stopped short. There was a moment of embarrassing silence. Then he added, bluntly, and with a hand reaching out: "I beg your pardon, Mac. It's this fever. I forgot for a moment that-- that you two-- had broken."
"That's all right," said MacVeigh, with a quiver in his voice, as he turned for the water.
"You see," he added, returning with a tin cup, "this report is different. When you're writing to the Big Mogul himself something gets on your nerves. And it has been a bad year with us, Pelly. We fell down on Scottie, and let the raiders from that whaler get away from us. And-- By Jo, I forgot to mention the wolves!"
"Put in a P. S.," suggested Pelliter.
"A P. S. to his Royal Nibs!" cried MacVeigh, staring incredulously at his mate. "There's no use of feeling your pulse any more, Pelly. The fever's got you. You're sure out of your head."
He spoke cheerfully, trying to bring a smile to the other's pale face. Pelliter dropped back with a sigh.
"No-- there isn't any use feeling my pulse," he repeated. "It isn't sickness, Bill-- not sickness of the ordinary sort. It's in my brain-- that's where it is. Think of it-- nine months up here, and never a glimpse of a white man's face except yours. Nine months without the sound of a woman's voice. Nine months of just that dead, gray world out there, with the northern lights hissing at us every night like snakes and the black rocks staring at us as they've stared for a million centuries. There may be glory in it, but that's all. We're 'eroes all right, but there's no one knows it but ourselves and