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

ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to
limb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never
falling, never missing his grip. In fact, he seemed as much at
home among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories of
nights of vigil spent beneath trees wherein the hairy man roosted,
holding on tightly as he slept.


And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call
still sounding in the depths of the forest. It filled him with a
great unrest and strange desires. It caused him to feel a vague,
sweet gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings
for he knew not what. Sometimes he pursued the call into the
forest, looking for it as though it were a tangible thing, barking
softly or defiantly, as the mood might dictate. He would thrust
his nose into the cool wood moss, or into the black soil where
long grasses grew, and snort with joy at the fat earth smells; or
he would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behind fungus-
covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to all
that moved and sounded about him. It might be, lying thus, that
he hoped to surprise this call he could not understand. But he
did not know why he did these various things. He was impelled to
do them, and did not reason about them at all.


Irresistible impulses seized him. He would be lying in camp,
dozing lazily in the heat of the day, when suddenly his head would
lift and his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he would
spring to his feet and dash away, and on and on, for hours,
through the forest aisles and across the open spaces where the
niggerheads bunched. He loved to run down dry watercourses, and
to creep and spy upon the bird life in the woods. For a day at a
time he would lie in the underbrush where he could watch the
partridges drumming and strutting up and down. But especially he
loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights,
listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading
signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the
mysterious something that called-called, waking or sleeping, at
all times, for him to come.


One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrils
quivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves.
From the forest came the call (or one note of it, for the call was
many noted), distinct and definite as never before,-a long-drawn
howl, like, yet unlike, any noise made by husky dog. And he knew
it, in the old familiar way, as a sound heard before. He sprang
through the sleeping camp and in swift silence dashed through the
woods. As he drew closer to the cry he went more slowly, with
caution in every movement, till he came to an open place among the