Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day.
And with the coming of the night, brooding and mourning by the pool, Buck became alive to a stirring of the new life in the forest other than that which the Yeehats had made, He stood up, listening and scenting.
From far away drifted a faint, sharp yelp, followed by a chorus of similar sharp yelps. As the moments passed the yelps grew closer and louder.
Again Buck knew them as things heard in that other world which persisted in his memory.
He walked to the centre of the open space and listened. It was the call, the many-noted call, sounding more luringly (诱惑地) and compellingly (激发兴趣地) than ever before.
And as never before, he was ready to obey. John Thornton was dead. The last tie was broken. Man and the claims of man no longer bound him.
Hunting their living meat, as the Yeehats were hunting it, on the flanks of the migrating (迁徙) moose, the wolf pack (狼群) had at last crossed over from the land of streams and timber and invaded (入侵) Buck's valley.
Into the clearing (空地) where the moonlight streamed, they poured in a silvery flood; and in the centre of the clearing stood Buck, motionless as a statue, waiting their coming.{1}
They were awed (畏怯的), so still and large he stood, and a moment's pause fell, till the boldest one leaped straight for him.
Like a flash Buck struck, breaking the neck. Then he stood, without movement, as before, the stricken (遭受重创的) wolf rolling in agony (极度痛苦) behind him.
Three others tried it in sharp succession; and one after the other they drew back, streaming blood from slashed (被撕裂的) throats or shoulders.
This was sufficient to fling (使突然处于某种状态) the whole pack forward, pell-mell, crowded together, blocked and confused by its eagerness to pull down the prey.
Buck's marvellous (惊人的) quickness and agility (敏捷) stood him in good stead.
Pivoting (以…为中心旋转) on his hind legs, and snapping and gashing, he was everywhere at once, presenting a front which was apparently unbroken so swiftly did he whirl and guard from side to side.{2}
But to prevent them from getting behind him, he was forced back, down past the pool and into the creek bed, till he brought up against a high gravel (砾石) bank.
He worked along to a right angle in the bank which the men had made in the course of mining, and in this angle he came to bay, protected on three sides and with nothing to do but face the front.{3}
And so well did he face it, that at the end of half an hour the wolves drew back discomfited (挫败). The tongues of all were out and lolling (舌头伸出并下垂), the white fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight.
Some were lying down with heads raised and ears pricked forward; others stood on their feet, watching him; and still others were lapping water from the pool.
One wolf, long and lean and gray, advanced cautiously, in a friendly manner, and Buck recognized the wild brother with whom he had run for a night and a day. He was whining softly, and, as Buck whined, they touched noses.
Then an old wolf, gaunt (憔悴的) and battle-scarred, came forward. Buck writhed (蠕动) his lips into the preliminary of a snarl, but sniffed noses with him, Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose at the moon, and broke out the long wolf howl.
The others sat down and howled. And now the call came to Buck in unmistakable (不会弄错的) accents (口音). He, too, sat down and howled.
This over, he came out of his angle and the pack crowded around him, sniffing in half- friendly, half-savage manner. The leaders lifted the yelp (叫) of the pack and sprang away into the woods.
The wolves swung in behind, yelping in chorus. And Buck ran with them, side by side with the wild brother, yelping as he ran.
And here may well end the story of Buck. The years were not many when the Yeehats noted a change in the breed (品种) of timber wolves; for some were seen with splashes (斑点) of brown on head and muzzle, and with a rift of white centring down the chest.
But more remarkable than this, the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the pack. They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning (狡黠) greater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters, robbing (抢劫) their traps, slaying (杀死) their dogs, and defying (藐视) their bravest hunters.
Nay (甚至), the tale grows worse. Hunters there are who fail to return to the camp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen (部落成员) found with throats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints about them in the snow greater than the prints of any wolf.{4}
Each fall, when the Yeehats follow the movement of the moose, there is a certain valley which they never enter. And women there are who become sad when the word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit (魔鬼) came to select that valley for an abiding-place (住所；寓所).
In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of which the Yeehats do not know.
It is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alone from the smiling timberland and comes down into an open space among the trees.
Here a yellow stream flows from rotted (腐烂的) moose-hide sacks (鹿皮袋) and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mould (霉菌) overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses (沉思) for a time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.
But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis (闪烁的北极光), leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.
The End
