Белый клык / White Fang

Once he suddenly awoke to see the she-wolf was less than a yard[13 - a yard – ярд (английская мера длины, равная ок. 99 см)] from him. Mechanically, without letting go of it, he thrust a brand into her open mouth. She sprang away, yelling with pain.

Before he dozed again, he tied a burning pine-knot to his right hand. His eyes were closed only a few minutes when the flame on his flesh awakened him. Every time he was thus awakened he drove back the wolves with flying brands, checked the fire, and rearranged the pine-knot on his hand.

All worked well, but once he tied the pine-knot badly. As his eyes closed it fell away from his hand.

He dreamed. It seemed to him that he was in Fort McGurry. It was warm and comfortable, and he was playing cards with the Factor. Also, it seemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves. They were howling at the gates, and sometimes he and the Factor paused from the game to listen and laugh at them. And suddenly the door was burst open.

He could see the wolves coming into the big living-room. They were leaping straight for him and the Factor. Their howling now followed him everywhere.

And then he awoke to find the howling real. The wolves were all about him and upon him. The teeth of one had closed upon his arm. Instinctively he leaped into the fire, and as he leaped, he felt the sharp teeth that tore through the flesh of his leg. Then there began a fire fight. His mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he threw burning coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire looked like a volcano.

But it could not last long. The heat was becoming unbearable to his feet. With a burning brand in each hand, he sprang to the edge of the fire. The wolves had been driven back, and many of them stepped on the fallen coals, crying with pain.

The man thrust his brands at the nearest of his enemies, then thrust his mittens and legs into the snow to cool them. His two dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had served as a course in the meal which had begun days before with Fatty, and the last course of which would likely be himself in the days to follow.

“You haven’t got me yet!” he cried, shaking his fist at the hungry beasts; and at the sound of his voice the whole circle was agitated, and the she-wolf came close to him and watched him with hungry wistfulness.

Henry extended the fire into a large circle and crouched inside it.