The Call of the Wild / Зов предков. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Джек Лондон

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СКАЧАТЬ were swept back against the cliff at the first onset. Buck was beset by three huskies, and in a trice his head and shoulders were ripped and slashed. The din was frightful. Billee was crying as usual. Dave and Sol-leks, dripping blood from a score of wounds, were fighting bravely side by side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once, his teeth closed on the fore leg of a husky, and he crunched down through the bone. Pike, the malingerer, leaped upon the crippled animal, breaking its neck with a quick flash of teeth and a jerk, Buck got a frothing adversary by the throat, and was sprayed with blood when his teeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of it in his mouth goaded him to greater fierceness. He flung himself upon another, and at the same time felt teeth sink into his own throat. It was Spitz, treacherously attacking from the side.

      Perrault and François, having cleaned out their part of the camp, hurried to save their sled-dogs. The wild wave of famished beasts rolled back before them, and Buck shook himself free. But it was only for a moment. The two men were compelled to run back to save the grub[36], upon which the huskies returned to the attack on the team. Billee, terrified into bravery, sprang through the savage circle and fled away over the ice. Pike and Dub followed on his heels, with the rest of the team behind. As Buck drew himself together to spring after them, out of the tail of his eye he saw Spitz rush upon him with the evident intention of overthrowing him. Once off his feet and under that mass of huskies, there was no hope for him. But he braced himself to the shock of Spitz’s charge, then joined the flight out on the lake.

      Later, the nine team-dogs gathered together and sought shelter in the forest. Though unpursued, they were in a sorry plight. There was not one who was not wounded in four or five places, while some were wounded grievously. Dub was badly injured in a hind leg; Dolly, the last husky added to the team at Dyea, had a badly torn throat; Joe had lost an eye; while Billee, the good-natured, with an ear chewed and rent to ribbons, cried and whimpered throughout the night. At daybreak they limped warily back to camp, to find the marauders gone and the two men in bad tempers. Fully half their grub supply was gone. The huskies had chewed through the sled lashings and canvas coverings. In fact, nothing, no matter how remotely eatable, had escaped them. They had eaten a pair of Perrault’s moose-hide moccasins, chunks out of the leather traces, and even two feet of lash from the end of François’s whip. He broke from a mournful contemplation of it to look over his wounded dogs.

      “Ah, my frien’s,” he said softly, “mebbe it mek you mad dog, dose many bites[37]. Mebbe all mad dog, sacredam! Wot you t’ink, eh, Perrault?”

      The courier shook his head dubiously. With four hundred miles of trail still between him and Dawson, he could ill afford to have madness break out among his dogs. Two hours of cursing and exertion got the harnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffened team was under way, struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they had yet encountered, and for that matter, the hardest between them and Dawson.

      The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied the frost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that the ice held at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required to cover those thirty terrible miles. And terrible they were, for every foot of them was accomplished at the risk of life to dog and man. A dozen times, Perrault, nosing the way broke through the ice bridges, being saved by the long pole he carried, which he so held that it fell each time across the hole made by his body. But a cold snap was on, the thermometer registering fifty below zero[38], and each time he broke through he was compelled for very life to build a fire and dry his garments.

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      Примечания

      1

      trouble was brewing – (разг.) надвигалась беда

      2

      were booming the find – раструбили об этой находке

      3

      the Klondike strike – «золотая лихорадка» в Клондайке (северо-запад Канады) – в 1896 г. были открыты богатейшие месторождения золота, туда хлынул поток золотоискателей

      4

      cold cash – (р

Примечания

1

trouble was brewing – (разг.) надвигалась беда

2

were booming the find – раструбили об этой находке

3

the Klondike strike – «золотая лихорадка» в Клондайке (северо-запад Канады) – в 1896 г. были открыты богатейшие месторождения золота, туда хлынул поток золотоискателей

4

cold cash – (разг.) наличными

5

or I’m a squarehead – (разг.) или я ничего в этом не смыслю

6

If I don’t get the hydrophoby – (зд.) Только бы он не оказался бешеный

7

his anger waxed and waxed – (уст.) его гнев все возрастал

8

was metamorphosed into a raging fiend – (разг.) превратился в настоящего дьявола

9

He’s no slouch at dog-breakin’ – (сленг) Он усмирит любого пса

10

we’ve had our little ruction – (разг.) мы с тобой немного погорячились

СКАЧАТЬ