Acme-KeyboardMarathon
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1.27 2022/01/07
Using GNU TAR now. The previous release had PAX headers in the tar file.
Build scripts now automatically configure minium perl version.
1.23 2014/04/14
Added "source-tree-marathon.pl"
Work from James Raspass <jraspass@gmail.com> that vastly improves speed
Corrected minor scoping error in "fox" test
1.22 2014/03/24
Corrected error where 'i' or 'I' was assigned the wrong value
Cleaned the new() method for clarity of distance calculation
1.21 2014/03/21
Avoiding copying values from @_ on distance
Corrected a MANIFEST error
Added a longer test using "Call of the Wild" by Jack London
1.20 2014/03/21
Added \r with a score of 0. Since in unix return is \n and in
windows it is \n and \r combined, the \n score is sufficent.
Moved to interger only math to improve speed
Added a full charset test
1.19 2014/03/19
of Curly, he received another shock. Francois fastened upon him an
arrangement of straps and buckles. It was a harness, such as he had seen
the grooms put on the horses at home. And as he had seen horses work,
so he was set to work, hauling Francois on a sled to the forest that
fringed the valley, and returning with a load of firewood. Though his
dignity was sorely hurt by thus being made a draught animal, he was too
wise to rebel. He buckled down with a will and did his best, though
it was all new and strange. Francois was stern, demanding instant
obedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant obedience;
while Dave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Buck's hind quarters
whenever he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced,
and while he could not always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof now
and again, or cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck
into the way he should go. Buck learned easily, and under the combined
tuition of his two mates and Francois made remarkable progress. Ere they
returned to camp he knew enough to stop at "ho," to go ahead at "mush,"
to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear of the wheeler when the
loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.
"T'ree vair' good dogs," Francois told Perrault. "Dat Buck, heem pool
lak hell. I tich heem queek as anyt'ing."
delay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces seemed
the supreme expression of their being, and all that they lived for and
the only thing in which they took delight.
Dave was wheeler or sled dog, pulling in front of him was Buck, then
came Sol-leks; the rest of the team was strung out ahead, single file,
to the leader, which position was filled by Spitz.
Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so that he
might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they were equally
apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error, and enforcing
their teaching with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and very wise. He
never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to nip him when he
stood in need of it. As Francois's whip backed him up, Buck found it
to be cheaper to mend his ways than to retaliate. Once, during a brief
halt, when he got tangled in the traces and delayed the start, both
Dave and Solleks flew at him and administered a sound trouncing. The
resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took good care to keep the
traces clear thereafter; and ere the day was done, so well had he
mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging him. Francois's whip
snapped less frequently, and Perrault even honored Buck by lifting up
without them. Later his feet grew hard to the trail, and the worn-out
foot-gear was thrown away.
At the Pelly one morning, as they were harnessing up, Dolly, who had
never been conspicuous for anything, went suddenly mad. She announced
her condition by a long, heartbreaking wolf howl that sent every dog
bristling with fear, then sprang straight for Buck. He had never seen a
dog go mad, nor did he have any reason to fear madness; yet he knew
that here was horror, and fled away from it in a panic. Straight away he
raced, with Dolly, panting and frothing, one leap behind; nor could she
gain on him, so great was his terror, nor could he leave her, so great
was her madness. He plunged through the wooded breast of the island,
flew down to the lower end, crossed a back channel filled with rough ice
to another island, gained a third island, curved back to the main river,
and in desperation started to cross it. And all the time, though he
did not look, he could hear her snarling just one leap behind. Francois
called to him a quarter of a mile away and he doubled back, still one
leap ahead, gasping painfully for air and putting all his faith in that
Francois would save him. The dog-driver held the axe poised in his hand,
and as Buck shot past him the axe crashed down upon mad Dolly's head.
on to the lower levels, and it seemed they could never shake off this
tireless creature that held them back. Besides, it was not the life of
the herd, or of the young bulls, that was threatened. The life of only
one member was demanded, which was a remoter interest than their lives,
and in the end they were content to pay the toll.
As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watching his
mates--the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, the bulls he
had mastered--as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the fading
light. He could not follow, for before his nose leaped the merciless
fanged terror that would not let him go. Three hundredweight more than
half a ton he weighed; he had lived a long, strong life, full of fight
and struggle, and at the end he faced death at the teeth of a creature
whose head did not reach beyond his great knuckled knees.
From then on, night and day, Buck never left his prey, never gave it a
moment's rest, never permitted it to browse the leaves of trees or
the shoots of young birch and willow. Nor did he give the wounded bull
opportunity to slake his burning thirst in the slender trickling streams
they crossed. Often, in desperation, he burst into long stretches of
flight. At such times Buck did not attempt to stay him, but loped easily
the throat wide open till the rent jugular spouted a fountain of blood.
He did not pause to worry the victim, but ripped in passing, with
the next bound tearing wide the throat of a second man. There was
no withstanding him. He plunged about in their very midst, tearing,
rending, destroying, in constant and terrific motion which defied the
arrows they discharged at him. In fact, so inconceivably rapid were his
movements, and so closely were the Indians tangled together, that they
shot one another with the arrows; and one young hunter, hurling a spear
at Buck in mid air, drove it through the chest of another hunter with
such force that the point broke through the skin of the back and stood
out beyond. Then a panic seized the Yeehats, and they fled in terror to
the woods, proclaiming as they fled the advent of the Evil Spirit.
And truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels and
dragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees. It was
a fateful day for the Yeehats. They scattered far and wide over the
country, and it was not till a week later that the last of the survivors
gathered together in a lower valley and counted their losses. As for
Buck, wearying of the pursuit, he returned to the desolated camp. He
found Pete where he had been killed in his blankets in the first moment
of surprise. Thornton's desperate struggle was fresh-written on the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
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