Белый Клык / White Fang. Джек Лондон

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      For two days the she-wolf and One Eye hung about the Indian camp. He was worried, yet she didn’t want to depart. But when, one morning, a bullet passed several inches from One Eye’s head, they hesitated no more and left.

      They did not go far—a couple of days’ journey. The she-wolf’s need to find the thing for which she searched had now become urgent. She was getting very heavy, and could run but slowly. Her temper was now shorter than ever; but he had become more patient.

      And then she found the thing for which she looked. It was a few miles up a small stream that in the summer time flowed into the Mackenzie, but in winter it was frozen down to its rocky bottom—a dead stream of white from source to mouth. The she-wolf examined it and entered inside. For three feet she had to crouch, then the walls widened and rose higher in a little round chamber nearly six feet in diameter. It was dry and cosy. She inspected it with painstaking care, while One Eye stood in the entrance and patiently watched her. Then, with a tired sigh, she curled, relaxed her legs, and lay with her head toward the entrance. One Eye, with pointed, interested ears, laughed at her, and she could see his tail wagging good-naturedly. She was pleased and satisfied.

      One Eye was hungry. He crawled over to his mate and tried to persuade her to get up. But she only snarled at him, and he walked out alone. He had found game, but he had not caught it, so he returned.

      He paused at the mouth of the cave with a sudden shock of suspicion. Strange sounds came from within. They were sounds not made by his mate, and yet they were remotely familiar. He bellied carefully inside and was met by a warning snarl from the she-wolf. But he remained interested in the other sounds—faint and muffled.

      His mate warned him away, and he curled up and slept in the entrance. When morning came, he again looked for the source of the sounds. There was a new note in his mate’s warning snarl. It was a jealous note, and he was very careful in keeping a respectful distance. Nevertheless, he saw five strange little bundles of life, very helpless, making whimpering noises, with eyes that did not open to the light. He was surprised. It was not the first time in his long and successful life that this thing had happened. It had happened many times, yet each time it was as fresh a surprise as ever.

      His mate looked at him anxiously. Of her own experience she had no memory of the thing happening; but in her instinct, which was the experience of all the mothers of wolves, there was a memory of fathers that had eaten their new-born and helpless children.

      But there was no danger. Old One Eye was feeling an instinct that had come down to him from all the fathers of wolves. He knew he should turn his back on his new-born family and look out for food.

      Half a mile from the stream he saw a porcupine. One Eye approached carefully but hopelessly. But he knew that there was such a thing as Chance, or Opportunity, and he continued to draw near.

      The porcupine rolled itself into a ball with long, sharp quills. One Eye knew it could be dangerous, so he lied down and waited. But at the end of half an hour he arose, growled at the motionless ball, and trotted on.

      His awakened instinct of fatherhood was strong. He must find meat. In the afternoon he managed to catch a ptarmigan. As his teeth crunched through its flesh, he began naturally to eat. Then he remembered, and, turning on the back-track, started for home[19], carrying the ptarmigan in his mouth.

      Then he came upon large tracks and followed them, prepared to meet their maker at every turn of the stream. And he saw it. It was a large female lynx. She was crouching, as he had done before, in front the same ball of quills.

      He lay down in the snow, put the ptarmigan beside him, and watched the waiting lynx and the waiting porcupine. Half an hour passed, an hour; and nothing happened.

      The porcupine had at last decided that its enemy had gone away. Slowly, cautiously, it was unrolling its ball. Not quite entirely had it unrolled when it discovered the lynx. The lynx struck. The blow was like a flash of light. The paw with sharp claws went under the tender belly and came back with a quick movement.

      Everything had happened at once—the blow, the counter-blow, the cry from the porcupine, the big cat’s cry of sudden hurt and astonishment. One Eye half arose in his excitement, his ears up, his tail straight out behind him. The lynx sprang at the thing that had hurt her, but squealed again. In her nose there were quills, like in a monstrous pin-cushion. She brushed it with her paws, put it into the snow, and rubbed it against twigs and branches, and all the time leaping about, ahead, sidewise, up and down, in pain and fright. Then she sprang away, up the trail, squalling with every leap she made.

      When One Eye approached, the porcupine managed to roll up in a ball again, but it was not quite the old compact ball; its muscles were too much torn for that. It had been ripped almost in half, and was still bleeding.

      One Eye saw the bloody snow, and chewed it. Then he lied down and waited. In a little while, One Eye noticed that all the quills drooped down, and the body relaxed and moved no more. It was surely dead.

      One Eye took it carefully with his teeth, then recollected something, dropped the burden, and trotted back to where he had left the ptarmigan. He did not hesitate a moment. He knew clearly what was to be done, and this he did by immediately eating the ptarmigan. Then he returned and took up his burden.

      When he brought the result of his day’s hunt into the cave, the she-wolf inspected it and lightly licked him on the neck. But the next instant she was warning him away from the cubs with a snarl that was less sharp than usual and that was more apologetic than menacing. He was behaving as a wolf-father should.

      Chapter III. THE GREY CUB

      He was different from his brothers and sisters. Their hair already betrayed the reddish hue inherited from their mother; while he alone took after his father[20]. He was the only grey cub of the litter. He was a real wolf—in fact, he was like One Eye himself.

      The grey cub’s eyes had not been open long, yet already he could see clearly. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his two sisters very well. And long before his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell to know his mother. She had a soft, caressing tongue that calmed him when it passed over his soft little body, and that made him sleepy.

      Always, in the beginning, before his conscious life began, he had crawled toward the mouth of the cave. And his brothers and sisters did the same. The chemistry of the life that created them demanded the light.

      Later the grey cub discovered that his mother also had a nose and a paw and could push and hit. Thus he learned hurt; and he learned to avoid hurt, first, by not risking; and second, when he had risked, by retreating. These were conscious actions, and were the results of his first generalizations upon the world.

      He was a fierce little cub. So were his brothers and sisters. It was to be expected. He was a carnivorous animal and came of a breed of meat-killers and meat-eaters. His father and mother lived wholly upon meat. The milk he drank was transformed directly from meat.

      But he was the fiercest of the litter. He could make a louder growl than any of them, and it was he who first learned many things. He was always going to the mouth of the cave—and was always stopped by his mother. To him the entrance of the cave was a wall—a wall of light; it attracted him as a candle attracts a moth. The life that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he must choose.

      Though never allowed by his mother to approach that wall, he had approached the other walls, and felt a hard obstacle on the end of his СКАЧАТЬ