He followed the trail of the other man who dragged himself along, and soon came to the end of it---a few fresh bones where the moss was marked by the foot prints of many wolves. He saw a bag, like his own, which had been torn by sharp teeth. He picked it up, though its weight was almost too much for his weak fingers. Bill had carried it to the last. Haha! He would have the laugh on Bill. He would live and carry it to the ship in the shining sea. The man stopped suddenly: How could he have the laugh on Bill if that were Bill; if those bones were Bill?
He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him; but he would not take the gold, nor would he suck（吮） Bill's bones. Bill would have, though, had it been the other way around, he thought as he struggled on.
He came to a pool of water. Bending over in search of fish, he drew his head back as though he had been hit. He had caught sight of his face in the water. So terrible was it that he felt shocked. There were three little fish in the pool, but it was too large to empty; and after several attempts to catch them in the tin bucket failed, he gave up. He was afraid, because of his great weakness, that he might fall in and drown.
That day he shortened the distance between him and the ship by three miles; the next day by two---for he was crawling now as Bill had crawled; and the end of the fifth found the ship still seven miles away and him unable to make even a mile a day. Still the Indian summer held on, and he continued to crawl and faint, turn and turn about; and ever the sick wolf coughed and followed him. His knees had become raw meat like his feet, and though he wrapped them with the shirt from his back it was a red trail he left behind him on the moss and stones. Once, glancing back, he saw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, and he saw sharply what his own end might be---unless---unless he could get the wolf. Then began a cruel tragedy（悲剧） of existence as was ever played---a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that followed---two creatures dragging their dying bodies across the wild country and hunting each other's lives.