"London, Jack - A Relic of the Pliocene" - читать интересную книгу автора (London Jack)

"But the question of food," I objected, ignoring his point, which was puerile
and without bearing. "The soil must bring forth vegetable life in lavish
abundance to support so monstrous creatures. Nowhere in the North is the soil so
prolific. Ergo, the mammoth cannot exist."
"I pardon your ignorance concerning many matters of this Northland, for you are
a young man and have traveled little; but, at the same time, I am inclined to
agree with you on one thing. The mammoth no longer exists. How do I know? I
killed the last one with my own right arm."
Thus spake Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter. I threw a stick of firewood at the dogs
and bade them quit their unholy howling, and waited. Undoubtedly this liar of
singular felicity would open his mouth and requite me for my St. Elias bear.
"It was this way," he at last began, after the appropriate silence had
intervened. "I was in camp one day--"
"Where?" I interrupted.
He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the northeast, where stretched a
terra incognita into which vastness few men have strayed and fewer emerged. "I
was in camp one day with Klooch. Klooch was as handsome a little kamooks as ever
whined betwixt the traces or shoved nose into a camp kettle. Her father was a
full-blood malemute from Russian Pastilik on Bering Sea, and I bred her, and
with understanding, out of a clean-legged bitch of the Hudson Bay stock. I tell
you, O man, she was a corker companion. And now, on this day I have in mind, she
was brought to pup through a pure wild wolf of the woods--gray, and long of
limb, with big lungs and no end of staying powers. Say! Was there ever the like?
It was a new breed of dog I had started, and I could look forward to big things.

"As I have said, she was brought neatly to pup, and safely delivered. I was
squatting on my hams over the litter--seven sturdy, blind little beggars--when
from behind came a bray of trumpets and crash of brass. There was a rush, like
the wind squall that kicks the heels of the rain, and I was midway to my feet
when knocked flat on my face. At the same instant I heard Klooch sigh, very much
as a man does when you've planted your fist in his belly. You can stake your
sack I lay quiet, but I twisted my head around and saw a huge bulk swaying above
me. Then the blue sky flashed into view and I got to my feet. A hairy mountain
of flesh was just disappearing in the underbrush on the edge of the open. I
caught a rear-end glimpse, with a stiff tail, as big in girth as my body,
standing out straight behind. The next second only a tremendous hole remained in
the thicket, though I could still hear sounds like a tornado dying quickly away,
underbrush ripping and tearing, and trees snapping and crashing.
"I cast about for my rifle. It had been lying on the ground with the muzzle
against a log; but now the stock was smashed, the barrel out of line, and the
working gear in a thousand bits. Then I looked for the slut, and--and what do
you suppose?"
I shook my head.
"May my soul burn in a thousand hells if there was anything left of her! Klooch,
the seven sturdy, blind little beggars--gone, all gone. Where she had stretched
was a slimy, bloody depression in the soft earth, all of a yard in diameter, and
around the edges a few scattered hairs."
I measured three feet on the snow, threw about it a circle, and glanced at
Nimrod.
"The beast was 30 long and 20 high," he answered, "and its tusks scaled over six