"London, Jack - The Son of the Wolf and Other Tales of the North" - читать интересную книгу автора (London Jack)

don't leave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on the trigger.
You understand. Think of it! Think of it! Flesh of my flesh, and
I'll never live to see him!
'Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by and tell her that she must
think of the boy and not wait till I'm dead. She might refuse to go
with you if I didn't. Good-by, old man; good-by.
'Kid! I say- a- sink a hole above the pup, next to the slide. I
panned out forty cents on my shovel there.
'And, Kid!' He stooped lower to catch the last faint words, the
dying man's surrender of his pride. 'I'm sorry- for- you know-
Carmen.'
Leaving the girl crying softly over her man, Malemute Kid slipped
into his parka and snowshoes, tucked his rifle under his arm, and
crept away into the forest. He was no tyro in the stern sorrows of the
Northland, but never had he faced so stiff a problem as this. In the
abstract, it was a plain, mathematical proposition- three possible
lives as against one doomed one. But now he hesitated. For five years,
shoulder to shoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and
mines, facing death by field and flood and famine, had they knitted
the bonds of their comradeship. So close was the tie that he had often
been conscious of a vague jealousy of Ruth, from the first time she
had come between. And now it must be severed by his own hand.
Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose, all game seemed to
have deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling
into camp, lighthanded, heavyhearted. An uproar from the dogs and
shrill cries from Ruth hastened him.
Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in the midst of the snarling
pack, laying about her with an ax. The dogs had broken the iron rule
of their masters and were rushing the grub. He joined the issue with
his rifle reversed, and the hoary game of natural selection was played
out with all the ruthlessness of its primeval environment. Rifle and
ax went up and down, hit or missed with monotonous regularity; lithe
bodies flashed, with wild eyes and dripping fangs; and man and beast
fought for supremacy to the bitterest conclusion. Then the beaten
brutes crept to the edge of the firelight, licking their wounds,
voicing their misery to the stars.
The whole stock of dried salmon had been devoured, and perhaps
five pounds of flour remained to tide them over two hundred miles of
wilderness. Ruth returned to her husband, while Malemute Kid cut up
the warm body of one of the dogs, the skull of which had been
crushed by the ax. Every portion was carefully put away, save the hide
and offal, which were cast to his fellows of the moment before.

Morning brought fresh trouble. The animals were turning on each
other. Carmen, who still clung to her slender thread of life, was
downed by the pack. The lash fell among them unheeded. They cringed
and cried under the blows, but refused to scatter till the last
wretched bit had disappeared- bones, hide, hair, everything.
Malemute Kid went about his work, listening to Mason, who was back
in Tennessee, delivering tangled discourses and wild exhortations to