"Jack London. The Call of the Wild (Сборник из 7 рассказов на англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Mercedes, who disburdened herself of copious opinions upon that
topic, and incidentally upon a few other traits unpleasantly
peculiar to her husband's family. In the meantime the fire
remained unbuilt, the camp half pitched, and the dogs unfed.


Mercedes nursed a special grievance-the grievance of sex. She was
pretty and soft, and had been chivalrously treated all her days.
But the present treatment by her husband and brother was
everything save chivalrous. It was her custom to be helpless.
They complained. Upon which impeachment of what to her was her
most essential sex-prerogative, she made their lives unendurable.
She no longer considered the dogs, and because she was sore and
tired, she persisted in riding on the sled. She was pretty and
soft, but she weighed one hundred and twenty pounds-a lusty last
straw to the load dragged by the weak and starving animals. She
rode for days, till they fell in the traces and the sled stood
still. Charles and Hal begged her to get off and walk, pleaded
with her, entreated, the while she wept and importuned Heaven with
a recital of their brutality.


On one occasion they took her off the sled by main strength. They
never did it again. She let her legs go limp like a spoiled
child, and sat down on the trail. They went on their way, but she
did not move. After they had travelled three miles they unloaded
the sled, came back for her, and by main strength put her on the
sled again.


In the excess of their own misery they were callous to the
suffering of their animals. Hal's theory, which he practised on
others, was that one must get hardened. He had started out
preaching it to his sister and brother-in-law. Failing there, he
hammered it into the dogs with a club. At the Five Fingers the
dog-food gave out, and a toothless old squaw offered to trade them
a few pounds of frozen horse-hide for the Colt's revolver that
kept the big hunting-knife company at Hal's hip. A poor substitute
for food was this hide, just as it had been stripped from the
starved horses of the cattlemen six months back. In its frozen
state it was more like strips of galvanized iron, and when a dog
wrestled it into his stomach it thawed into thin and innutritious
leathery strings and into a mass of short hair, irritating and
indigestible.


And through it all Buck staggered along at the head of the team as
in a nightmare. He pulled when he could; when he could no longer
pull, he fell down and remained down till blows from whip or club
drove him to his feet again. All the stiffness and gloss had gone