The Call of the Wild: Selected Short Stories by Jack London

Chapter 3 Love Life (2)
Just like last night, he first raised the fire to boil the water.After drinking a few cans of hot water, he felt much warmer on his body, so he found a rock and prepared to spend the night.Before going to bed, he looked at the match again to make sure it was dry; then he took out his watch and wound it up.The blanket covering his body was damp and cold, and his sprained ankle felt a sharp pain, but he only felt hungry.Falling asleep with hunger, in his dream, he saw countless feasts and banquets, the most important thing was the tempting food.

When he woke up the next day, his body was still a little uncomfortable, and he also felt very cold.The sun cannot be seen, the earth and sky are gray, and the sky is getting darker and darker.A gust of cold wind blew, and the top of the mountain was dyed white by snow. This was the first snow this year.Everything around him became white.Fortunately, he had lit the fire and boiled a pot of water.Large flakes of snow mixed with raindrops fell from the sky and melted as soon as they touched the ground.Then the snow fell harder and harder, covering the whole ground, and drowning his fire, as well as the dry moss that he had picked up to start the fire.

To him, it was a warning.He had to pick up the pack and struggle to move forward.But he didn't know where he was going.Tichenijili, Bill, and the cellar where he kept things were not his concern now.There was nothing to keep him focused except eating.Now he's starving like crazy.As long as he can get out of this valley as soon as possible, it doesn't matter what path he takes.He groped his way past the moor berries, plucking the rushes and walking cautiously.

The rushes were tasteless and not enough to satisfy the hunger.However, he found another weed with a sour taste.This weed is a creeping plant, very low, all covered by snow, and can be found in very small numbers.Because of the rain and snow, he couldn't start a fire at night, let alone boil water.He could only sleep under the blanket, and was awakened by hunger from time to time at night.When he woke up from hunger, the snow had stopped, but the rain kept falling.Sometimes, the raindrops fell on his face, which was icy cold, and woke him up several times.When I woke up in the morning, the rain stopped at some point, the sky was still gray, and the sun could not be seen.The pain from hunger disappeared at some point, and he no longer had the desire to eat.His stomach hurts a bit, but not too much for him.Now his thoughts were clear: he must reach Ticinijili and the cellar where they hid their things.

In order to move on, he tore the torn blanket into strips, first wrapped up the bleeding feet, and then tied up the sprained ankle again.Finally, it was the turn of the heavy buckskin bag. After thinking about it for a long time, he was still reluctant to throw it away.

Only the top of the mountain can still see snow, and the snow on the ground has long since melted away with the rain.The sun finally came out, so that he could rely on the compass to determine where he was now.The first two days he was wandering around, going too far to the left, out of the right way.To get back on the right path, he has to go right.

Because of the long journey and not getting enough food, he felt weak even though the pangs of hunger were gone.He often stopped to rest, especially when he was picking berries or pulling rushes.He felt his tongue was covered with fine hairs, dry, large, and bitter.And every few steps he took, his heart would be pounding violently, and then rise and fall rapidly, making him dizzy and out of breath, which not only troubled him, but also made him very pain.

At noon, he saw two minnows.They were in a large puddle, as long as his little finger.There was so much water in the puddle that he couldn't scoop it all out.With the experience of catching fish last time, he was not in such a hurry this time.He held his breath, and slowly fished them all up with the tin can.His stomach was already numb from the pain, as if asleep, so he didn't feel very hungry.But in order to go on alive, he has to eat if he doesn't want to, and eating at this time is just a simple action for him.Thinking of this, he put the fish in his mouth and chewed hard.

By evening he had caught three more minnows.He ate two of them and saved one for tomorrow morning.With the sun today, the scattered moss on the ground has been dried up, so he can boil some water to warm up his body at night.He hadn't walked ten miles since morning.As long as his heart can bear it, he will walk more tomorrow, even if it is only five miles more than today.His stomach may be asleep because he doesn't feel any discomfort in his stomach.He is not familiar with the place where he is now.The number of reindeer and wolves gradually increased, and he could often hear the howling of wolves in the distance.He had once seen three wolves crossing the road ahead.

The night passed quickly.The next morning, feeling very refreshed, he untied the sack he was carrying and poured out the gold inside.The gold was a heap of sand and nuggets, and they were yellow and coarse.He divided the poured gold into two equal parts: one was wrapped in a blanket and hid behind a rock, and the other was still in his pocket.Then, to cover his feet, he tore strips of cloth from the blanket.As for the gun, he was not willing to throw it away. He would have bullets when he got to the Deas River.

Today is foggy, and he feels hungry again.He was so dizzy that he could hardly see anything, and he was so weak that he tripped and fell.He once stumbled in a grouse's nest.Poor four little grouse in the nest!They were only a day old before they were eaten by him.He stuffed these fresh little lives into his mouth, and ate them like chewing eggshells.While he was devouring, the hen grouse kept flapping around him, trying to snatch back her chicks.Without a stick, he shot it with the gun in his hand, but it missed.He picked up a stone on the ground and accidentally injured one of its wings.The hen had no choice but to flap her wings and run away.

And those chicks were like an appetizer for him. Seeing the hen escape, he limped after him dragging the sprained leg.He staggered on like this, sometimes yelling at it and throwing stones at it;

To his surprise, this chase made him walk out of the swamp.He saw some footprints in the damp moss.I have never been here, these footprints must be Bill's.But for the sake of his stomach, he had to catch the hen in front before he could come back and examine it carefully.

The hen chased him so far that he couldn't run anymore, and fell on the ground, panting.He was in exactly the same situation as the chicken at the moment.Seeing that the distance between him and the grouse was only about ten feet, he had no strength at all.And when he came to catch his breath and reached out to grab the grouse, it had already flapped its wings and fled away.He and the grouse ran after each other till dark.In the end, he still didn't catch the grouse.He tripped over something, and he fell down in exhaustion.The face was scratched, and the body was wrapped and pressed underneath.He couldn't move anymore, and he lay on the ground for a long time before turning over and lying on his side.Winding up the watch, he lay motionless until the next morning.

It was foggy again.Wrapping his injured foot took up half his blanket—the only one he had left.Bill was still missing.Is Bill lost too?he thought to himself.After thinking about it again, it's not a big deal, he can take his time looking for it.But he was too hungry, and just reached noon, he was already suffocated by the heavy package.He took the bundle and poured out half of the gold in it.In the afternoon, he also threw away the remaining gold.Half the blanket, the tin can, and the gun were all he had kept.

He had a hallucination: on the one hand he was sure that there was a bullet in his chamber, but he had forgotten it; on the other hand he always knew it was empty.But this hallucination has been lingering in his mind, making him tortured.Struggling with himself for hours, he decided to get rid of this imaginary, and fired the gun, only to be disappointed to see that the chamber was still empty, as if he had expected to see a bullet in his chamber— — it pained him a lot.

Half an hour later, he had this hallucination again.He had to fight it over and over again, and had no choice but to fire the gun again to get out of the situation.This almost crazy idea gnawed at his brain like moths, making him unable to think normally, and could only move forward mechanically subconsciously.But the pangs of hunger quickly pulled him back from this unrealistic illusion.I remember one time, when he was lost in the illusion, something suddenly appeared in front of him.He staggered to his feet, and suddenly woke up.horse!Really a horse!He was so excited that he was about to faint, and there were stars in front of his eyes.He rubbed his eyes vigorously, and after a closer look, it turned out to be a big brown bear.

And the bear was looking at him with warlike eyes.As soon as he raised the gun halfway, he suddenly remembered that there was no bullet in the gun.Putting down his gun, he drew his hunting knife.The knife was on the back of his ass, and the sheath was still beaded.The blade and point were sharp, and he had tried it with his thumb.

But just when he was about to rush over to kill the bear, his heart suddenly beat wildly, as if to warn him.His heart was lifted up, beating non-stop; his mind also began to faint, as if strangled by a magic spell.Fear spread quickly, and the initial fearlessness had long since dissipated.

With such a disparity in power, how could he escape the attack of this big brown bear?We can only take one step at a time.With hunting knife in hand, he poised himself to look as tough as possible.Then he stared fixedly at the bear.

The big brown bear dragged its bulky body two steps closer to him, stood on its two legs, and roared—testing him to run or not: if it ran, it would chase.However, he had turned his fear into courage, regained his strength, and did not run away.Instead, he snarled back at the bear.And the voice he made at this time came from the fear at the bottom of his heart, a cry at the critical moment of life and death, which made people sound so ferocious and terrifying.

The big brown bear was also a little scared, he took a step back awkwardly, and just howled dryly.He just stood there straight, unafraid, until the bear turned away.Unable to bear it any longer, he trembled all over, and collapsed on the damp moss.

When he was on the road again, a new fear flooded his heart.It's not the fear of being starved to death, but the fear of being eaten by ferocious beasts before starving to death.There are many wolves here, and he can hear wolves howling anytime and anywhere.These sounds floated in the air, interweaving into a boundless net, which made people feel within reach.He couldn't help being frightened, raised his hand, and pushed it back like a tent blown away by the wind.

Many times, he saw wolves walking by in twos and threes.The wolves avoided him: because they were few in number, and because they were looking for reindeer—the reindeer wouldn't resist, and he might scratch and bite.

As it was getting dark, he saw some broken bones, and there must have been a beast that had been eaten by wolves.He carefully observed the bones, they were gnawed until they were all shiny, only a part of them was slightly pink, because the remaining cells hadn't died yet.An hour ago it was a frisky baby reindeer, but now there is only a pile of scattered bones left.After a while, will he also be a pile of scattered bones and be thrown on the ground?He was a little confused, is this the ultimate expression of life?He was thinking: life is really a void, an elusive existence.You feel pain while you're alive, but death, like sleep, doesn't make you feel pain, it just means the end.The strange thing is that he is not willing to die like this despite the pain of living.

These thoughts about life and death did not faze him because he had more important things to do.He squatted down, picked up a bone from the mossy floor, and sucked it hard.There was still some remnants of life on this bone, and the long-lost smell of meat brought back his vague memory, and he was about to go crazy.He chewed hard, sometimes accidentally crushing his own teeth.In order to avoid gnashing his teeth again, he smashed the bones with rocks, mashed them into paste and swallowed them.Sometimes when he was too impatient, he would hit his finger, but the strange thing was that he didn't feel much pain.

The next few days were dreadful with rain and snow.He kept walking forward day and night, sleeping there when he fell down, and moving forward slowly when the spark of life flickered and burned again.It was his inner life, unwilling to die, that kept him going, not his body.Although his brain was full of illusions, his nerves were numb and he couldn't feel the pain.

He collected the broken bones of the little reindeer and carried them with him.Sucking and chewing non-stop on the way.In order to save energy, he no longer waded through mountains and rivers, but only walked along a small stream mechanically.He saw the stream flowing through a wide shallow valley, but what he saw was only his own vision, there was no stream and there was no valley.The connection between his soul and body was already weak, and although they were moving together, they were going in different directions.

I don't know whether it was two days or two weeks in the storm, but one day he awoke sanely and found himself lying on his back on a rock.He lay motionless, and the bright sun on his weather-beaten body quickly warmed him up.Not far away came the sound of a herd of young reindeer screaming.In his memory, he only vaguely remembered the strong wind, heavy rain and heavy snow, and he had no impression of the others.

Today is a sunny day!

With the sun, he might be able to determine his position.He turned his body on his side with such force that it was painful.There is a river under him, the river is very wide but the water flows very slowly.He looked at the river strangely. Along the river, the river meandered through many hills.The hills looked more bare, bleak, and low than any hill he had walked before.He continued to look forward calmly, even with a little interest, and saw the river merging into the sea in the far horizon.Oddly enough, he still didn't feel anything.It must be something wrong with his neural connections, an illusion created by his brain.The sight of a great ship at anchor on that shining sea strengthened his mind.He closed his eyes, and the strange thing was that when he opened his eyes again, the sea and the boat were still there!This is the center of the wilderness, where is there any sea and ships?He knew it was all an illusion, just as he knew his gun was empty.

(End of this chapter)