Читать «Белый клык / White Fang» онлайн - страница 9

He dreamed. It seemed to him that he was in Fort McGurry. It was warm and comfortable, and he was playing cards with the Factor. Also, it seemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves. They were howling at the gates, and sometimes he and the Factor paused from the game to listen and laugh at them. And suddenly the door was burst open. He could see the wolves coming into the big living-room. They were leaping straight for him and the Factor. Their howling now followed him everywhere.

And then he awoke to find the howling real. The wolves were all about him and upon him. The teeth of one had closed upon his arm. Instinctively he leaped into the fire, and as he leaped, he felt the sharp teeth that tore through the flesh of his leg. Then there began a fire fight. His mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he threw burning coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire looked like a volcano. But it could not last long. The heat was becoming unbearable to his feet. With a burning brand in each hand, he sprang to the edge of the fire. The wolves had been driven back, and many of them stepped on the fallen coals, crying with pain.

The man thrust his brands at the nearest of his enemies, then thrust his mittens and legs into the snow to cool them. His two dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had served as a course in the meal which had begun days before with Fatty, and the last course of which would likely be himself in the days to follow.

“You haven’t got me yet!” he cried, shaking his fist at the hungry beasts; and at the sound of his voice the whole circle was agitated, and the she-wolf came close to him and watched him with hungry wistfulness.

Henry extended the fire into a large circle and crouched inside it. The whole pack came closer to see what had become of him. They could not cross the fire, and they now settled down in a close-drawn circle, like dogs, blinking and yawning and stretching their lean bodies in the warmth. Then the she-wolf sat down, pointed her nose at a star, and began to howl. One by one the wolves joined her, till the whole pack was howling.

Dawn came, and daylight. The fire was burning low. The fuel had run out, and there was need to get more. The man could not step out of the circle of fire or drive the wolves back. As he gave up and sat inside his circle, a wolf leaped for him, missed, and landed with all four feet in the coals. It cried out with terror, at the same time snarling, and jumped back to cool its paws in the snow.

The man sat down on his blankets. His shoulders relaxed and drooped, his head was on his knees: he had given up the struggle. Now and again he raised his head and watched the fire dying. The circle of flame and coals was breaking into segments with openings in between.

“I guess you can come and get me any time,” he said. “Anyway, I’m going to sleep.”

Once he awakened, and in an opening in the circle, he saw the she-wolf gazing at him.

Again he awakened, a little later, though it seemed hours to him. A mysterious change had taken place. He could not understand at first. Then he discovered it. The wolves were gone. Only the traces on the snow showed how closely they had come.