White Fang / Белый Клык. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“I’d a blame sight sooner think that than anything else. You noticed yourself the row the dogs made.”

Cry after cry, and answering cries, were turning the silence into a bedlam. From every side the cries arose, and the dogs betrayed their fear by huddling together and so close to the fire that their hair was scorched by the heat. Bill threw on more wood, before lighting his pipe.

“I’m thinking you’re down in the mouth some[5 - you’re down in the mouth some – (разг.) что-то ты совсем загрустил],” Henry said.

“Henry…” He sucked meditatively at his pipe for some time before he went on. “Henry, I was a-thinkin’ what a blame sight luckier he is than you an’ me’ll ever be.”

He indicated the third person by a downward thrust of the thumb to the box on which they sat.

“You an’ me, Henry, when we die, we’ll be lucky if we get enough stones over our carcases to keep the dogs off of us.”

“But we ain’t got people an’ money an’ all the rest, like him,” Henry rejoined.

“What gets me, Henry, is what a chap like this, that’s a lord or something in his own country, and that’s never had to bother about grub nor blankets; why he comes a-buttin’ round the Godforsaken ends of the earth – that’s what I can’t exactly see.”

“He might have lived to a ripe old age if he’d stayed at home,” Henry agreed.

Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. Instead, he pointed towards the wall of darkness that pressed about them from every side. There was no suggestion of form in the utter blackness; only could be seen a pair of eyes gleaming like live coals. Henry indicated with his head a second pair, and a third. A circle of the gleaming eyes had drawn about their camp. Now and again[6 - Now and again – (разг.

The unrest of the dogs had been increasing, and they stampeded, in a surge of sudden fear, to the near side of the fire, cringing and crawling about the legs of the men. In the scramble one of the dogs had been overturned on the edge of the fire, and it had yelped with pain and fright as the smell of its singed coat possessed the air.