作者：[美] 杰克·伦敦（Jack London）
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
人与自然(外研社双语读库)试读：
Up The Slide爬上陡坡When Clay Dilham left the tent to get a sled-load of fire-wood, he expected to be back in half an hour. So he told Swanson, who was cooking the dinner. Swanson and he belonged to different outfits, located about twenty miles apart on the Stuart River; but they had become traveling partners on a trip down the Yukon to Dawson to get the mail.
克莱·迪尔汉姆出了帐篷打算去弄一雪橇柴火，他预计半小时内就能回来。他也是这么跟斯旺森说的，当时斯旺森正在做晚饭。斯旺森和他分属于不同的小组，两个小组都位于斯图尔特河边上，彼此相隔二十英里远；但由于要沿着育空河向下去道森取邮件，两人在旅途中结成了旅伴。
Swanson had laughed when Clay said he would be back in half an hour. It stood to reason, Swanson said, that good, dry fire-wood could not be found so close to Dawson; that whatever fire-wood there was originally had long since been gathered in; that fire-wood would not be selling at forty dollars a cord if any man could go out and get a sled-load and be back in the time Clay expected to make it.
当克莱说自己半小时内就能回来时，斯旺森笑了。斯旺森说的话合情合理：离道森这么近的地方可找不着好的干柴火；就算那里原来有什么柴火，也早就被收集起来了；而且如果谁能出去捡到一雪橇的柴火并在克莱预计的时间内返回，柴火就不会卖四十美元一捆了。
Then it was Clay's turn to laugh as he sprang on the sled and mushed the dogs onto the river-trail. For, coming up from the Siwash village the previous day, he had noticed a small dead pine in an out-of-the-way place which had defied discovery by eyes less sharp than his. And his eyes were both young and sharp, for his seventeenth birthday was just cleared.
克莱跳上雪橇，赶着狗队驶上了河面上的雪道，这回该轮到他笑了。因为，就在前一天从锡沃斯村落回来的路上，他注意到了一棵枯死的小松树，松树长在很偏僻的地方，那些没他眼尖的人都没能发现。他的眼睛既有年轻人的活力又很敏锐，因为他十七岁生日才刚刚过去。
A swift ten minutes over the ice brought him to the place, and figuring ten minutes to get the tree and ten minutes to return made him certain that Swanson's dinner would not wait.
雪橇在冰上跑得快，十分钟就能将他带到那个地方，估摸着爬到松树那儿得要十分钟，返回用十分钟，这让他确信斯旺森不用等着他吃饭。
Just below Dawson, and rising out of the Yukon itself, towered the great Moosehide Mountain, so named by Lieutenant Schwatka long ere the Klondike became famous. On the river side the mountain was scarred and gullied and gored; and it was up one of these gores or gullies that Clay had seen the tree.
就在道森的南面，耸立着从育空地区拔地而起的巍峨的鹿皮山，早在克朗代克出名之前，施沃特卡中尉起就这么叫它了。这座山沿河的一侧被水冲刷得山石陡峭，并形成了溪谷和狭长的三角地带；克莱就是在其中的一个溪谷或是三角洲上看见了那棵树。
Halting his dogs beneath, on the river ice, he looked up, and after some searching rediscovered it. Being dead, its weather-beaten gray so blended with the gray of rock that a thousand men could pass by and never notice it. Taking root in a cranny, it had grown up, exhausted its bit of soil, and perished. Beneath it the wall fell sheer away for a hundred feet to the river. All one had to do was to sink an ax into the dry trunk a dozen times and it would fall to the ice, and most probably smash conveniently to pieces. This Clay had figured on when confidently limiting the trip to half an hour.
他勒住身下的狗队，停在了河流的冰面上；他朝上看了看，找了一会儿后就再次发现了那棵树。松树已经枯死，它那经受风雨侵蚀所形成的灰色同岩石的灰色混杂在一起，以至于上千个人路过这里都没能够注意到它。扎根于岩缝之中，这棵树渐渐长大，然后吸尽了土壤的那点儿养分，最后死掉了。树下就是陡坡峭壁，有一百英尺高，下面就是河。要做的就是抡起斧子往干枯的树干上砍上十几下，树就会摔到冰面上，很有可能还会碎成几段，这倒是省了事。克莱信心十足地把路程限定为半小时，其实他早就盘算好了这一点。
He studied the cliff thoroughly before attempting it. So far as he was concerned, the longest way round was the shortest way to the tree. Twenty feet of nearly perpendicular climbing would bring him to where a slide sloped more gently in. By making a long zigzag across the face of this slide and back again, he would arrive at the pine.
在尝试攀爬之前，他彻底地研究了一下这个悬崖。在他看来，绕着山往上爬虽然路途最远，却也是抵达松树所在地的最快方法。沿着几乎垂直的陡坡爬上二十英尺，他就能到达坡面倾斜更为缓和的地方。在这个坡面上沿之字形路线爬上长长一段，然后再往回爬，他就能到达松树那儿了。
Fastening his ax across his shoulders so that it would not interfere with his movements, he clawed up the broken rock, hand and foot, like a cat, till the twenty feet were cleared, and he could draw breath on the edge of the slide.
他把斧子系在肩上，这样就不会妨碍到他的行动；他抓着碎岩石往上爬，手脚并用像只猫似的，直到爬完了二十英尺，他才能在坡沿上歇口气。
The slide was steep and its snow-covered surface slippery. Further, the heel-less, walrus-hide soles of his muclucs were polished by much ice travel, and by his second step he realized how little he could depend upon them for clinging purposes. A slip at that point meant a plunge over the edge and a twenty-foot fall to the ice. A hundred feet farther along, and a slip would mean a fifty-foot fall.
坡很陡，积雪覆盖的坡面还很滑。而且，他那海象皮鞋底的平跟软靴因在雪地里走得太多，已被磨得很光滑了；刚迈出第二步，他就意识到自己要靠它们来攀紧坡面几乎是不可能的。在那个地方只要一打滑，他就会从二十英尺高的坡沿上冲下来，跌落到冰面上。再走一百英尺，脚一滑就意味着从五十英尺高的地方摔下去。
He thrust his mittened hand through the snow to the earth to steady himself, and went on. But he was forced to exercise such care that the first zigzag consumed five minutes. Then, returning across the face of the slide toward the pine, he met with a new difficulty. The slope steepened considerably, so that little snow collected, while bent flat beneath this thin covering were long, dry last-year's grasses.
他将戴着连指手套的手插进雪里，抓住地面让自己稳固些，接着又继续往上爬。但他不得不爬得十分小心，所以爬完第一段之字形路就花掉了他五分钟。然后，当他横穿坡面转而向松树那边爬回时，他又遇到了新的麻烦。斜坡陡了许多，所以没什么积雪，而那层薄薄的雪下盖着的是去年的枯草，又长又干枯，平贴着地面。
The surface they presented was glassy as that of his muclucs, and when both surfaces came together his feet shot out and he fell on his face, sliding downward, and convulsively clutching for something to stay himself.
这样形成的坡面和他的海豹靴一样滑，两者的表面挨上的时候，他的脚踩飞了，脸朝下摔了下去。他一路往下滑，疯狂地想要抓着些什么让自己停下来。
This he succeeded in doing, though he lay quiet for a couple of minutes to get back his nerve. He would have taken off his muclucs and gone at it in his socks, only the cold was thirty below zero, and at
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