7 New Masters

CHAPTER 7 New Masters Thirty days after they left Dawson, Buck and his teammates arrived at Skaguay. They were carrying the Salt Water mail. The dogs were very tired and worn out. Buck normally weighed one hundred and forty pounds, but now he was only one hundred and fifteen. Even though the other dogs were lighter than Buck, they had also lost more weight. Pike, who often pretended to have a hurt leg so he would not have to work, was now limping for real. Sol-leks was also limping, and Dub's shoulder was hurt.

离开道森30天后，巴克和他的队友们到达了斯卡圭。 他们带着咸水邮车。 狗很累，筋疲力尽。 巴克通常体重140磅，但现在他只有115磅。 尽管其他的狗比巴克轻，但它们也减了更多的体重。 派克经常假装腿受伤，这样他就不用工作了，现在他真的一瘸一拐了。 索拉克斯也是一瘸一拐的，杜布的肩膀也受伤了。

Their legs were all terribly sore. There was no spring or bounce left in them. Their feet felt heavy on the trail. There was nothing wrong with the dogs except that they were dead tired. It was not the kind of tiredness that comes from a small bit of hard work, when it takes only a few hours to recover. This was the kind of tiredness that comes after many long months of hard work. The dogs did not have any strength left. It had all been used—every last bit of it. Every muscle was dead tired. In less than five months they had traveled twenty-five hundred miles, and during the last eighteen hundred miles they had taken only five days of rest. When they arrived at Skaguay, they looked like they were on their last legs. They could barely pull the sled, and on the downhills they just managed to keep out of the way of the sled. "Mush on, you poor sore feet," the driver encouraged them as they tottered down the

他们的腿都痛得厉害。 它们已经没有弹性了。 他们走在路上感到脚步沉重。 狗没有什么毛病，只是累得要死。 这不是那种只需要几个小时就能恢复过来的劳累。 这是长时间艰苦工作后的一种疲劳。 狗已经没有力气了。 所有的东西都被用过了——每一点都用过了。 每块肌肉都累坏了。 在不到五个月的时间里，他们走了两千五百英里，在最后的一千八百英里里，他们只休息了五天。 当他们到达Skaguay时，他们看起来已经奄奄一息了。 他们几乎拉不动雪橇，在下坡时，他们只是设法避开雪橇。 “走吧，可怜的痛脚，”车夫在他们摇摇晃晃地走下山坡时鼓励他们

main street of Skaguay. "This is the last. Then we will get one long rest, hey? For sure. One very long rest." The drivers were sure that they would have a long rest. But there were so many men rushing into the Klondike looking for gold, and many of them did not bring their families with them, which meant that there was a lot of mail, along with the official orders. Fresh batches of Hudson Bay dogs were coming in to take the places of those who could not run the trail anymore. The ones who could no longer run were sold. Three days passed, and Buck and his teammates found out how tired and weak they really were. On the morning of the fourth day, two men from the South came along and bought them, harness and all. The men called each other Hal and Charles. Charles was a middle-aged man, with watery eyes and a mustache that twisted up at the

Skaguay的主要街道。“这是最后一次了。 然后我们就可以好好休息了，对吧？ 肯定的。好好休息一下。” 司机们确信他们会休息很长时间。 但是有很多人冲进克朗代克寻找黄金，他们中的许多人没有带家人一起来，这意味着有很多邮件，还有官方的命令。 一批又一批的哈德逊湾的狗来代替那些不能再跑的狗。 那些跑不动的被卖掉了。 三天过去了，巴克和他的队友们发现他们是多么的疲惫和虚弱。 第四天的早晨，有两个南方人来买了马，连马具都买了下来。 这两个男人互相称呼哈尔和查尔斯。 查尔斯是一个中年男人，一双水汪汪的眼睛，胡子向上翘着

ends. Hal was only nineteen or twenty, and carried a big gun and hunting knife strapped to his belt. Both men were out of place here in the North, and no one could understand why they had come. Buck heard the men talking, saw the money pass between the man and the government agent, and knew that the Scottish driver and the mail train drivers were passing out of his life just like Perrault and Francois and the others who had gone before. When they arrived at their new camp, Buck saw a messy place. The tent was falling down, and there were unwashed dishes. He also saw a woman, whom the men called Mercedes. She was Charles's wife and Hal's sister. Buck watched them nervously as they tried to take down the tent and load the sled. They were trying hard, but they did not know what to do. They rolled the tent into a bundle three times as large as it should have

结束。哈尔只有十九、二十岁，腰间系着一把大枪和一把猎刀。 这两个人在北方都格格不入，谁也不明白他们为什么要来。 巴克听到了他们的谈话，看到了那人与政府特工之间的钱往来，他知道那个苏格兰司机和邮车司机正在从他的生活中消失，就像佩诺特、弗朗索瓦斯和其他之前离开的人一样。 当他们到达他们的新营地时，巴克看到了一个混乱的地方。 帐篷倒了，还有一些没洗的盘子。 他还看到了一个女人，男人们叫她梅塞苔丝。 她是查尔斯的妻子和哈尔的妹妹。 巴克紧张地看着他们把帐篷拆下来，装上雪橇。 他们很努力，但不知道该怎么办。 他们把帐篷卷成比实际尺寸大三倍的一捆

been. They left the dishes unwashed and packed them. Mercedes and the two men talked and argued all the time. When they put a sack of clothes on the front of the sled, she suggested it should go on the back. After they had put it there, and covered it with a few other bundles, she found more things they forgot to pack, and that had to go in the clothes sack, so they unloaded everything and started again. Three men from a camp nearby came and watched, grinning and winking at each other. "You have a heavy load already," said one of them. "I shouldn't tell you your business, but I wouldn't take that tent along if I was you." "Impossible!" Mercedes cried, throwing up her hands. "How in the world could we manage without a tent?" "You don't need it. It's springtime, and you

是。他们没洗盘子，就把它们打包了。 梅塞苔丝和那两个男人一直在交谈和争论。 当他们把一袋衣服放在雪橇前面时，她建议把它放在后面。 他们把箱子放在那儿，再用其他几捆东西盖上，她又发现了一些他们忘了打包的东西，这些东西必须放进衣服袋里，于是他们把所有的东西都卸下来，重新上路了。 附近一个营地里来了三个人，他们看着我，咧着嘴笑，互相使眼色。 “你的担子已经够重的了，”其中一个说。 “我不该告诉你你的事，但如果我是你，我就不会带着那顶帐篷走。” “不可能!”美塞苔丝举起双手叫道。 “没有帐篷，我们怎么能过日子呢？”“你不需要它。 现在是春天，而你

won't get any more cold weather," the man replied. She shook her head as Charles and Hal put the last few items on top of the huge load. "Think it'll ride?" one of the men asked. "Why shouldn't it?" Charles said angrily. "Oh, that's all right, that's all right," the man said quickly. "I was just wondering, that's all. It seemed a little top-heavy." Charles turned his back and pulled the ropes down as well as he could, which was not very well at all. "And you're sure the dogs can hike all day with that load behind them?" another man asked. "Certainly," said Hal. "Mush!" he shouted. "Mush on there!" The dogs sprang forward in the harness, strained hard for a few moments, then relaxed. They could not move the sled.

再也不会有这么冷的天气了。”男人回答。 她摇了摇头，查尔斯和哈尔把最后几样东西放在那一大堆东西上面。 “你觉得它会骑起来吗？”其中一个人问。 “为什么不能呢？”查尔斯生气地说。 “哦，没关系，没关系，”那人赶紧说。 “我只是想知道，仅此而已。 它似乎有点头重脚轻。” 查尔斯转过身去，尽他所能把绳子往下拉，但这一点也不太好。 另一个人问道：“你确定这些狗背着这些东西能走一整天吗？” “当然可以。”哈尔说。“嘘!”他喊道。 “太好了！”狗在挽具上跳了起来，用力绷了一会儿，然后放松下来。 他们无法移动雪橇。