"They told us we couldn't make White River, and here we are." This last with a sneering (嘲讽的) ring of triumph in it.
"And they told you true," John Thornton answered. "The bottom's likely to drop out at any moment. Only fools, with the blind luck of fools, could have made it.
I tell you straight, I wouldn't risk my carcass (尸体) on that ice for all the gold in Alaska."{1}
"That's because you're not a fool, I suppose," said Hal. "All the same, we'll go on to Dawson." He uncoiled (解开) his whip. "Get up there, Buck! Hi! Get up there! Mush on!"
Thornton went on whittling (削). It was idle, he knew, to get between a fool and his folly (愚蠢); while two or three fools more or less would not alter (改变) the scheme of things.
But the team did not get up at the command. It had long since passed into the stage where blows were required to rouse it.
The whip flashed out, here and there, on its merciless errands (使命). John Thornton compressed (压紧) his lips.
Sol-leks was the first to crawl to his feet. Teek followed. Joe came next, yelping with pain. Pike made painful efforts. Twice he fell over, when half up, and on the third attempt managed to rise.
Buck made no effort. He lay quietly where he had fallen. The lash bit into him again and again, but he neither whined (哀鸣) nor struggled.
Several times Thornton started, as though to speak, but changed his mind.
A moisture came into his eyes, and, as the whipping continued, he arose and walked irresolutely (拿不定主意) up and down.
This was the first time Buck had failed, in itself a sufficient reason to drive Hal into a rage. He exchanged the whip (鞭子) for the customary (通常的) club.
Buck refused to move under the rain of heavier blows which now fell upon him. Like his mates, he barely able to get up, but, unlike them, he had made up his mind not to get up.
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He had a vague feeling of impending (即将发生的) doom. This had been strong upon him when he pulled in to the bank, and it had not departed from him.
What of the thin and rotten ice he had felt under his feet all day, it seemed that he sensed disaster close at hand, out there ahead on the ice where his master was trying to drive him.{2}
He refused to stir. So greatly had he suffered, and so far gone was he, that the blows did not hurt much.
And as they continued to fall upon him, the spark of life within flickered (颤动) and went down. It was nearly out.
He felt strangely numb (麻木的). As though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being beaten. The last sensations of pain left him.
He no longer felt anything, though very faintly he could hear the impact of the club upon his body. But it was no longer his body, it seemed so far away.
And then, suddenly, without warning, uttering a cry that was inarticulate (口齿不清的) and more like the cry of an animal, John Thornton sprang upon the man who wielded the club.
Hal was hurled backward, as though struck by a falling tree. Mercedes screamed. Charles looked on wistfully, wiped his watery eyes, but did not get up because of his stiffness (僵硬).
John Thornton stood over Buck, struggling to control himself, too convulsed (剧烈震动) with rage to speak.
"If you strike that dog again, I'll kill you," he at last managed to say in a choking voice.
"It's my dog," Hal replied, wiping the blood from his mouth as he came back. "Get out of my way, or I'll fix you. I'm going to Dawson."
Thornton stood between him and Buck, and evinced (表明) no intention of getting out of the way.
Hal drew his long hunting-knife. Mercedes screamed, cried, laughed, and manifested (显示) the chaotic abandonment of hysteria (歇斯底里).
Thornton rapped Hal's knuckles (指关节) with the axe-handle, knocking the knife to the ground. He rapped his knuckles again as he tried to pick it up.
Then he stooped (弯腰), picked it up himself, and with two strokes cut Buck's traces.
Hal had no fight left in him. Besides, his hands were full with his sister, or his arms, rather; while Buck was too near dead to be of further use in hauling (拖运) the sled.
A few minutes later they pulled out from the bank and down the river. Buck heard them go and raised his head to see, Pike was leading, Sol-leks was at the wheel, and between were Joe and Teek.
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They were limping and staggering. Mercedes was riding the loaded sled. Hal guided at the gee-pole (杆), and Charles stumbled (蹒跚) along in the rear.
As Buck watched them, Thornton knelt (跪下) beside him and with rough, kindly hands searched for broken bones.
By the time his search had disclosed (披露) nothing more than many bruises and a state of terrible starvation, the sled was a quarter of a mile away.
Dog and man watched it crawling along over the ice. Suddenly, they saw its back end drop down, as into a rut (凹槽), and the gee-pole, with Hal clinging to it, jerk into the air.
Mercedes's scream came to their ears. They saw Charles turn and make one step to run back, and then a whole section of ice give way and dogs and humans disappear.
A yawning (裂开的) hole was all that was to be seen. The bottom had dropped out of the trail.
John Thornton and Buck looked at each other.
"You poor devil," said John Thornton, and Buck licked his hand.
When John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December his partners had made him comfortable and left him to get well, going on themselves up the river to get out a raft (筏子) of saw-logs (制材用的原木) for Dawson.{3}
He was still limping slightly at the time he rescued Buck, but with the continued warm weather even the slight limp left him.
And here, lying by the river bank through the long spring days, watching the running water, listening lazily to the songs of birds and the hum of nature, Buck slowly won back his strength.
A rest comes very good after one has travelled three thousand miles, and it must be confessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed, his muscles swelled out, and the flesh came back to cover his bones.
For that matter, they were all loafing, --Buck, John Thornton, and Skeet and Nig, --waiting for the raft to come that was to carry them down to Dawson.
Skeet was a little Irish setter (爱尔兰猎犬) who early made friends with Buck, who, in a dying condition, was unable to resent (对…不满) her first advances.
She had the doctor trait (特性) which some dogs possess; and as a mother cat washes her kittens, so she washed and cleansed Buck's wounds.
Regularly, each morning after he had finished his breakfast, she performed her self-appointed task, till he came to look for her ministrations as much as he did for Thornton's.
Nig, equally friendly, though less demonstrative, was a huge black dog, half bloodhound and half deerhound (血统一半是警犬，一半是猎犬), with eyes that laughed and a boundless good nature.
To Buck's surprise these dogs manifested no jealousy toward him.
They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton.
As Buck grew stronger they enticed (引诱) him into all sorts of ridiculous games, in which Thornton himself could not forbear to join;
and in this fashion Buck romped through his convalescence (逐渐康复) and into a new existence.
Love, genuine (真正的) passionate love, was his for the first time.