White Fang by Jack London (first ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Jack London
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Henry grunted and crawled into bed. As he dozed off he was aroused by his comradeâs voice.
âSay, Henry, that other one that come in anâ got a fishâwhy didnât the dogs pitch into it? Thatâs whatâs botherinâ me.â
âYouâre botherinâ too much, Bill,â came the sleepy response. âYou was never like this before. You jesâ shut up now, anâ go to sleep, anâ youâll be all hunkydory in the morninâ. Your stomachâs sour, thatâs whatâs botherinâ you.â
The men slept, breathing heavily, side by side, under the one covering. The fire died down, and the gleaming eyes drew closer the circle they had flung about the camp. The dogs clustered together in fear, now and again snarling menacingly as a pair of eyes drew close. Once their uproar became so loud that Bill woke up. He got out of bed carefully, so as not to disturb the sleep of his comrade, and threw more wood on the fire. As it began to flame up, the circle of eyes drew farther back. He glanced casually at the huddling dogs. He rubbed his eyes and looked at them more sharply. Then he crawled back into the blankets.
âHenry,â he said. âOh, Henry.â
Henry groaned as he passed from sleep to waking, and demanded, âWhatâs wrong now?â
âNothinâ,â came the answer; âonly thereâs seven of âem again. I just counted.â
Henry acknowledged receipt of the information with a grunt that slid into a snore as he drifted back into sleep.
In the morning it was Henry who awoke first and routed his companion out of bed. Daylight was yet three hours away, though it was already six oâclock; and in the darkness Henry went about preparing breakfast, while Bill rolled the blankets and made the sled ready for lashing.
âSay, Henry,â he asked suddenly, âhow many dogs did you say we had?â
âSix.â
âWrong,â Bill proclaimed triumphantly.
âSeven again?â Henry queried.
âNo, five; oneâs gone.â
âThe hell!â Henry cried in wrath, leaving the cooking to come and count the dogs.
âYouâre right, Bill,â he concluded. âFattyâs gone.â
âAnâ he went like greased lightninâ once he got started. Couldnât âve seen âm for smoke.â
âNo chance at all,â Henry concluded. âThey jesâ swallowed âm alive. I bet he was yelpinâ as he went down their throats, damn âem!â
âHe always was a fool dog,â said Bill.
âBut no fool dog ought to be fool enough to go off anâ commit suicide that way.â He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative eye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal. âI bet none of the others would do it.â
âCouldnât drive âem away from the fire with a club,â Bill agreed. âI always did think there was somethinâ wrong with Fatty anyway.â
And this was the epitaph of a dead dog on the Northland trailâless scant than the epitaph of many another dog, of many a man.
THE SHE-WOLF
Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the darkness. At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sadâcries that called through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back. Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine oâclock. At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rose-colour swiftly faded. The grey light of day that remained lasted until three oâclock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the Arctic night descended upon the lone and silent land.
As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drew closerâso close that more than once they sent surges of fear through the toiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics.
At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the dogs back in the traces, Bill said:
âI wisht theyâd strike game somewheres, anâ go away anâ leave us alone.â
âThey do get on the nerves horrible,â Henry sympathised.
They spoke no more until camp was made.
Henry was bending over and adding ice to the babbling pot of beans when he was startled by the sound of a blow, an exclamation from Bill, and a sharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. He straightened up in time to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter of the dark. Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half triumphant, half crestfallen, in one hand a stout club, in the other the tail and part of the body of a sun-cured salmon.
âIt got half of it,â he announced; âbut I got a whack at it jesâ the same. Dâye hear it squeal?â
âWhatâd it look like?â Henry asked.
âCouldnât see. But it had four legs anâ a mouth anâ hair anâ looked like any dog.â
âMust be a tame wolf, I reckon.â
âItâs damned tame, whatever it is, cominâ in here at feedinâ time anâ gettinâ its whack of fish.â
That night, when supper was finished and they sat on the oblong box and pulled at their pipes, the circle of gleaming eyes drew in even closer than before.
âI wisht theyâd spring up a bunch of moose or something, anâ go away anâ leave us alone,â Bill said.
Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for a quarter of an hour they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, and Bill at the circle of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond the firelight.
âI wisht we was pullinâ into McGurry right now,â he began again.
âShut up your wishinâ and your croakinâ,â Henry burst out angrily. âYour stomachâs sour. Thatâs whatâs ailinâ you. Swallow a spoonful of sody, anâ youâll sweeten up wonderful anâ be more pleasant company.â
In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded from the mouth of Bill. Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.
âHello!â Henry called. âWhatâs up now?â
âFrogâs gone,â came the answer.
âNo.â
âI tell you yes.â
Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs. He counted them with care, and then joined his partner in cursing the power of the Wild that had robbed them of another dog.
âFrog was the strongest dog of the bunch,â Bill pronounced finally.
âAnâ he was no fool dog neither,â Henry added.
And so was recorded the second epitaph in two days.
A gloomy breakfast was eaten, and the four remaining dogs were harnessed to the sled. The day was a repetition of the days that had gone before. The men toiled without speech across the face of the frozen world. The silence was unbroken save by the cries of their pursuers, that, unseen, hung upon their rear. With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; and the dogs grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics that tangled the traces and further depressed the two men.
âThere, thatâll fix you fool critters,â Bill said with satisfaction that night, standing erect at completion of his task.
Henry left the cooking to come and see. Not only had his partner tied the dogs up, but he had tied them, after the Indian fashion, with sticks. About the neck of each dog he had fastened a leather thong. To this, and so close to the neck that the dog could not get his teeth to it, he had tied a stout stick four or five feet in length. The other end of the stick, in turn, was made fast to a stake in the ground by means of a leather thong. The dog was unable to gnaw through the leather at his own end of the stick. The stick prevented him from getting at the leather that fastened the other end.
Henry nodded his head approvingly.
âItâs the only contraption thatâll ever hold One Ear,â he said. âHe can gnaw through leather as clean as a knife anâ jesâ about half as quick. They allâll be here in the morninâ hunkydory.â
âYou jesâ bet they will,â Bill affirmed. âIf one of emâ turns up missinâ, Iâll go without my coffee.â
âThey jesâ know we ainât loaded to kill,â Henry remarked at bed-time, indicating the gleaming circle that hemmed them in. âIf we could put a couple of shots into âem, theyâd be more respectful. They come closer every night. Get the firelight out of your eyes anâ look hardâthere! Did you see that one?â
For some time the two men amused themselves with watching the movement of vague forms on the edge of the firelight. By looking closely and steadily at where a pair of eyes burned in the darkness, the form of the animal would slowly take shape. They could even see these forms move at times.
A sound among the dogs attracted the menâs attention. One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.
âLook at that, Bill,â Henry whispered.
Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong movement, glided a doglike animal. It moved with commingled mistrust and daring, cautiously observing the men, its attention fixed on the dogs. One Ear strained the full length of the stick toward the intruder and whined with eagerness.
âThat fool One Ear donât seem scairt much,â Bill said in a low tone.
âItâs a she-wolf,â Henry whispered back, âanâ that accounts for Fatty anâ Frog. Sheâs the decoy for the pack. She draws out the dog anâ then all the rest pitches in anâ eats âm up.â
The fire crackled. A log fell apart with a loud spluttering noise. At the sound of it the strange animal leaped back into the darkness.
âHenry, Iâm a-thinkinâ,â Bill announced.
âThinkinâ what?â
âIâm a-thinkinâ that was the one I lambasted with the club.â
âAinât the slightest doubt in the world,â was Henryâs response.
âAnâ right here I want to remark,â Bill went on, âthat that animalâs familyarity with campfires is suspicious anâ immoral.â
âIt knows for certain moreân a self-respectinâ wolf ought to know,â Henry agreed. âA wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at feedinâ time has had experiences.â
âOlâ Villan had a dog once that run away with the wolves,â Bill cogitates aloud. âI ought to know. I shot it out of the pack in a moose pasture over âon Little Stick. Anâ Olâ Villan cried like a baby. Hadnât seen it for three years, he said. Ben with the wolves all that time.â
âI reckon youâve called the turn, Bill. That wolfâs a dog, anâ itâs eaten fish manyâs the time from the hand of man.â
âAn if I get a chance at it, that wolf thatâs a dogâll be jesâ meat,â Bill declared. âWe canât afford to lose no more animals.â
âBut youâve only got three cartridges,â Henry objected.
âIâll wait for a dead sure shot,â was the reply.
In the morning Henry renewed the fire and cooked breakfast to the accompaniment of his partnerâs snoring.
âYou was sleepinâ jesâ too comfortable for anything,â Henry told him, as he routed him out for breakfast. âI hadnât the heart to rouse you.â
Bill began to eat sleepily. He noticed that his cup was empty and started to reach for the pot. But the pot was beyond armâs length and beside Henry.
âSay, Henry,â he chided gently, âainât you forgot somethinâ?â
Henry looked about with great carefulness and shook his head. Bill held up the empty cup.
âYou donât get no coffee,â Henry announced.
âAinât run out?â Bill asked anxiously.
âNope.â
âAinât thinkinâ itâll hurt my digestion?â
âNope.â
A flush of angry blood pervaded Billâs face.
âThen itâs jesâ warm anâ anxious I am to be hearinâ you explain yourself,â he said.
âSpankerâs gone,â Henry answered.
Without haste, with the air of one resigned to misfortune Bill turned his head, and from where he sat counted the dogs.
âHowâd it happen?â he asked apathetically.
Henry shrugged his shoulders. âDonât know. Unless One Ear gnawed âm loose. He couldnât a-done it himself, thatâs sure.â
âThe darned cuss.â Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of the anger that was raging within. âJesâ because he couldnât chew himself loose, he chews Spanker loose.â
âWell, Spankerâs troubles is over anyway; I guess heâs digested by this time anâ cavortinâ over the landscape in the bellies of twenty different wolves,â was Henryâs epitaph on this, the latest lost dog. âHave some coffee, Bill.â
But Bill shook his head.
âGo on,â Henry pleaded, elevating the pot.
Bill shoved his cup aside. âIâll be ding-dong-danged if I do. I said I wouldnât
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