"You might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'm," the stranger said gruffly (粗聲地), and Manuel doubled a piece of stout (牢固的) rope around Buck's neck under the collar.{1}
"Twist it, an' you'll choke 'm plentee," said Manuel, and the stranger grunted a ready (快的) affirmative (肯定；同意).
Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an unwonted (不尋常的) performance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew, and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached (超越) his own.
But when the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger's hands, he growled menacingly (脅迫地). He had merely intimated (暗示) his displeasure, in his pride believing that to intimate was to command.
But to his surprise the rope tightened around his neck, shutting off his breath. In quick rage (狂怒) he sprang at the man, who met him halfway, grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft (熟練的) twist threw him over on his back.
Then the rope tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting (喘息) futilely.
Never in all his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his life had he been so angry.{2} But his strength ebbed (退去), his eyes glazed (變呆滯), and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two men threw him into the baggage car.
The next he knew, he was dimly (朦朧地) aware that his tongue was hurting and that he was being jolted (晃動) along in some kind of a conveyance (運送). The hoarse shriek of a locomotive (火車頭) whistling a crossing told him where he was.
He had travelled too often with the Judge not to know the sensation of riding in a baggage car. He opened his eyes, and into them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king.
The man sprang for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him. His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they relax till his senses were choked out of him once more.{3}
"Yep, has fits," the man said, hiding his mangled (撕裂的) hand from the baggageman (行李員), who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle. "I'm takin' 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco. A crack (優秀的) dog-doctor there thinks that he can cure 'm."
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Concerning that night's ride, the man spoke most eloquently for himself, in a little shed (棚子) back of a saloon (酒館) on the San Francisco water front.
"All I get is fifty for it," he grumbled; "an' I wouldn't do it over for a thousand, cold cash." His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right trouser leg was ripped from knee to ankle.
"How much did the other mug (俚語，傻瓜) get?" the saloon-keeper demanded.
"A hundred," was the reply. "Wouldn't take a sou (一點點錢) less, so help me."
"That makes a hundred and fifty," the saloon-keeper calculated; "and he's worth it, or I'm a squarehead (俚語，笨頭笨腦的人)." The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his lacerated (受傷的) hand. "If I don't get the hydrophoby (相當于hydrophobia, 狂犬病 )--"
"It'll be because you was born to hang," laughed the saloon- keeper.
"Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight (貨)," he added.
Dazed, suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with the life half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors (使苦痛的人).
But he was thrown down and choked repeatedly, till they succeeded in filing (銼開) the heavy brass collar from off his neck. Then the rope was removed, and he was flung into a cage like crate (板條箱).
There he lay for the remainder of the weary (疲倦的) night, nursing his wrath (憤怒) and wounded pride. He could not understand what it all meant. What did they want with him, these strange men?
Why were they keeping him pent up in this narrow crate? He did not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense of impending (即將發生的) calamity (災難). Several times during the night he sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled open, expecting to see the Judge, or the boys at least.
But each time it was the bulging face of the saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of a tallow (牛脂) candle. And each time the joyful bark that trembled in Buck's throat was twisted into a savage growl.
But the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four men entered and picked up the crate.
More tormentors, Buck decided, for they were evil-looking creatures, ragged (破衣爛衫) and unkempt (蓬頭垢面); and he stormed and raged at them through the bars.
They only laughed and poked sticks at him, which he promptly assailed (毅然應對) with his teeth till he realized that that was what they wanted.
Whereupon he lay down sullenly (陰沉地) and allowed the crate to be lifted into a wagon. Then he, and the crate in which he was imprisoned, began a passage through many hands.
Clerks in the express (快車) office took charge of him; he was carted about in another wagon; a truck carried him, with an assortment (混合物) of boxes and parcels (包裹), upon a ferry steamer; he was trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot, and finally he was deposited in an express car.
For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the tail of shrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buck neither ate nor drank.
In his anger he had met the first advances of the express messengers with growls, and they had retaliated (報復) by teasing (戲弄) him. When he flung himself against the bars, quivering (顫抖) and frothing (吐白沫), they laughed at him and taunted (奚落) him.
They growled and barked like detestable (可惡的) dogs, mewed (作貓叫), and flapped their arms and crowed. It was all very silly, he knew; but therefore the more outrage (侮辱) to his dignity, and his anger waxed (漸漸變大) and waxed.
He did not mind the hunger so much, but the lack of water caused him severe suffering and fanned his wrath to fever-pitch.
For that matter, high-strung and finely (非常地) sensitive, the ill treatment had flung him into a fever, which was fed by the inflammation (燃燒) of his parched and swollen (腫脹的) throat and tongue.{4}
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He was glad for one thing: the rope was off his neck. That had given them an unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would show them.
They would never get another rope around his neck. Upon that he was resolved. For two days and nights he neither ate nor drank, and during those two days and nights of torment, he accumulated a fund of wrath that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him.
His eyes turned blood-shot, and he was metamorphosed (變形) into a raging fiend (魔鬼). So changed was he that the Judge himself would not have recognized him; and the express messengers breathed with relief when they bundled him off the train at Seattle.
