Mercedes looked at them imploringly (恳求地), untold repugnance (抵触) at sight of pain written in her pretty face.
"They're weak as water, if you want to know," came the reply from one of the men. "Plum tuckered out (精疲力竭), that's what's the matter. They need a rest."
"Rest be blanked," said Hal, with his beardless lips; and Mercedes said, "Oh!" in pain and sorrow at the oath.
But she was a clannish creature, and rushed at once to the defence of her brother. "Never mind that man," she said pointedly. "You’re driving our dogs, and you do what you think best with them."{1}
Again Hal's whip fell upon the dogs. They threw themselves against the breast-bands, dug their feet into the packed (压实的) snow, got downlow to it, and put forth all their strength.
The sled held as though it were an anchor. After two efforts, they stood still, panting. The whip was whistling savagely, when once more Mercedes interfered.
She dropped on her knees before Buck, with tears in her eyes, and put her arms around his neck.
"You poor, poor dears," she cried sympathetically (悲怜地), "why don't you pull hard? --then you wouldn't be whipped."
Buck did not like her, but he was feeling too miserable to resist her, taking it as part of the day’s miserable work.
One of the onlookers (旁观者), who had been clenching (咬紧) his teeth to suppress (忍住) hot speech, now spoke up:
"It's not that I care a whoop what becomes of you, but for the dogs' sakes I just want to tell you, you can help them a mighty lot by breaking out that sled.
The runners (雪橇的滑板) are froze fast. Throw your weight against the gee-pole (杆), right and left, and break it out."{2}
A third time the attempt was made, but this time, following the advice, Hal broke out the runners which had been frozen to the snow.
The overloaded and unwieldy (笨重的) sled forged ahead, Buck and his mates struggling frantically under the rain of blows.
A hundred yards ahead the path turned and sloped steeply into the main street.
It would have required an experienced man to keep the top-heavy sled upright, and Hal was not such a man.
As they swung (摆动) on the turn the sled went over, spilling half its load through the loose lashings. The dogs never stopped.
The lightened sled bounded on its side behind them. They were angry because of the ill treatment they had received and the unjust load.
Buck was raging. He broke into a run, the team following his lead. Hal cried "Whoa! whoa!" but they gave no heed. He tripped (绊倒) and was pulled off his feet.
The capsized sled ground (碾压) over him, and the dogs dashed on up the street, adding to the gayety (愉快) of Skaguay as they scattered the remainder of the outfit along its chief thoroughfare (大街).{3}
Kind-hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered up the scattered belongings (行李). Also, they gave advice.
Half the load and twice the dogs, if they ever expected to reach Dawson, was what was said.
Hal and his sister and brother-in-law listened unwillingly (不情愿地), pitched tent, and overhauled (彻底检修) the outfit.
Canned (灌装的) goods were turned out that made men laugh, for canned goods on the Long Trail is a thing to dream about.
"Blankets for a hotel" quoth (说) one of the men who laughed and helped. "Half as many is too much; get rid of them. Throw away that tent, and all those dishes, --who's going to wash them, anyway? Good Lord, do you think you're travelling on a Pullman (豪华火车车厢)?"
And so it went, the inexorable elimination (清除) of the superfluous (过多的). Mercedes cried when her clothes-bags were dumped on the ground and article after article was thrown out.
She cried in general, and she cried in particular over each discarded thing. She clasped hands about knees, rocking back and forth broken-heartedly.
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She averred (坚称) she would not go an inch, not for a dozen Charleses. She appealed to everybody and to everything, finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to cast out even articles of apparel (衣服) that were imperative (极重要的) necessaries.
And in her zeal, when she had finished with her own, she attacked the belongings of her men and went through them like a tornado (旋风).
This accomplished, the outfit, though cut in half, was still a formidable bulk (大量). Charles and Hal went out in the evening and bought six Outside dogs.
These, added to the six of the original team, and Teek and Koona, the huskies obtained at the Rink Rapids on the record trip, brought the team up to fourteen.
But the Outside dogs, though practically broken in since their landing, did not amount to much. Three were short-haired pointers (短毛猎狗), one was a Newfoundland (纽芬兰狗), and the other two were mongrels (杂种狗) of indeterminate (不明确的) breed.
They did not seem to know anything, these newcomers. Buck and his comrades looked upon them with disgust, and though he speedily taught them their places and what not to do, he could not teach them what to do.
They did not take kindly to trace and trail. With the exception of the two mongrels, they were bewildered (难住) and spirit-broken by the strange savage environment in which they found themselves and by the ill treatment they had received.
The two mongrels were without spirit at all; bones were the only things breakable about them.
With the newcomers hopeless and forlorn, and the old team worn out by twenty-five hundred miles of continuous trail, the outlook was anything but bright.
The two men, however, were quite cheerful. And they were proud, too. They were doing the thing in style, with fourteen dogs.
They had seen other sleds depart over the Pass for Dawson, or come in from Dawson, but never had they seen a sled with so many as fourteen dogs.
In the nature of Arctic travel there was a reason why fourteen dogs should not drag one sled, and that was that one sled could not carry the food for fourteen dogs.
But Charles and Hal did not know this. They had worked the trip out with a pencil, so much to a dog, so many dogs, so many days, Q.E.D. (证明完毕){4}
Mercedes looked over their shoulders and nodded comprehensively, it was all so very simple.
Late next morning Buck led the long team up the street. There was nothing lively about it, no snap or go in him and his fellows. They were starting dead weary (疲倦的).
Four times he had covered the distance between Salt Water and Dawson, and the knowledge that, jaded (厌倦的) and tired, he was facing the same trail once more, made him bitter.
His heart was not in the work, nor was the heart of any dog. The Outsides were timid and frightened, the Insides without confidence in their masters.
