Title:  God’s Country—­And the Woman

Author:  James Oliver Curwood

Release Date:  October, 2003 [Etext #4585] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 12, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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God’s Country—­And the Woman

By James Oliver Curwood

Author of “The Honor of the Big Snows,” “Philip Steele,” Etc.

CHAPTER ONE

Philip Weyman’s buoyancy of heart was in face of the fact that he had but recently looked upon Radisson’s unpleasant death, and that he was still in a country where the water flowed north.  He laughed and he sang.  His heart bubbled over with cheer.  He talked to himself frankly and without embarrassment, asked himself questions, answered them, discussed the beauties of nature and the possibilities of storm as if there were three or four of him instead of one.

At the top end of the world a man becomes a multiple being—­if he is white.  Two years along the rim of the Arctic had taught Philip the science by which a man may become acquainted with himself, and in moments like the present, when both his mental and physical spirits overflowed, he even went so far as to attempt poor Radisson’s “La Belle Marie” in the Frenchman’s heavy basso, something between a dog’s sullen growl and the low rumble of distant thunder.  It made him cough.  And then he laughed again, scanning the narrowing sweep of the lake ahead of him.

He felt like a boy, and he chuckled as he thought of the definite reason for it.  For twenty-three months he had been like a piece of rubber stretched to a tension—­sometimes almost to the snapping point.  Now had come the reaction, and he was going home.  Home!  It was that one word that caused a shadow to flit over his face, and only once or twice had he forgotten and let it slip between his lips.  At least he was returning to civilization—­getting away from the everlasting drone of breaking ice and the clack-clack tongue of the Eskimo.