Happy Halloween

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October 31 is Halloween. Do you celebrate Halloween where you live? If so, what do you do? If not, what do you know about this spooky day? Happy Halloween! 

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Dark, Dark Wood Spooky Story

It's almost Halloween! We're getting into the spirit with spooky stories!



There are strange things in the dark, dark wood! What are they? Watch and find out!






Dark, dark wood Short story
In the dark, dark wood, there was a dark, dark
house.
And in that dark, dark house, there was a dark,
dark room.
And in that dark, dark room, there was a dark, dark cupboard.
And in that dark, dark cupboard, there was a dark, dark shelf.
And on that dark, dark shelf, there was a dark, dark box.
And in that dark, dark box, there was a ghost.
Hoo-hoo-hoo! Haa-haa-boo!

Halloween songs

Halloween Songs
THE 12 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN
1 An owl in a dead oak tree
2 Two Trick-or-Treaters
3 Three Black Cats
4 Four skeletons
5 Five scary spooks
6 Six goblins gobbling

7 Seven pumpkins glowing
8 Eight monsters shrieking
9 Nine ghosts a-booing
10 Ten ghouls a-groaning
11 Eleven masks a-learing
12 Twelve bats a-flying

DECK THE PATCH
Deck the patch with orange & black fa la etc
Take along a goody sack, Fa la etc
Don we now our gay apparel, Fa la etc
Toll the ancient Pumpkin carol, Fa la etc
See the Great One rise before us, Fa la etc
As we sing the Pumpkin chorus, Fa la etc
Follow him as he ascends, Fa la etc
Join with True Great Pumpkin friends. Fa La etc





GREAT PUMPKIN IS COMIN TO TOWN
O you better not shriek,
you better not groan,
you better not howl,
you better not moan.
Great Pumpkin is comin' to town.
He's going to find out,
from folks that he meets,
who deserves tricks and who deserves treats.
Great Pumpkin is comin' to town.
This pumpkin day is happy,
This pumpkin day is gay,
Great pumpkin is a comin' soon and we'll watch for him each day.
O you better not skriek,
you better not groan,
you better not howl,
you better not moan,
Great Pumpkin is comin' to town.

I HEAR THE BELLS ON HALLOWEEN
I heard the bells on Halloween
Their old, familiar carols scream
And wild and sweet the words repeat
The Pumpkin Season's here again.
Then pealed the bells more loud & strong,
Great Pumpkin comes before too long, the good will get, the bad will fret,
The Pumpkin Season's here again.

O'PUMPKIN CARD
O Pumpkin cards;
O pumpkin cards
Carry greetings to my friends,
Let them know the day is here
When Great Pumpkin will appear,
O Pumpkin cards,
O pumpkin cards,
Carry greetings to my friends.

PUMPKIN BELLS
Dashing through the streets
In our costumes bright and gay
To each house we go
Laughing all the way
Halloween is here
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to trick-or-treat and sing pumpkin carols tonight,
O pumpkins bells, pumpkin bells,
Ringing loud and clear
O what fun Great Pumpkin brings
When Halloween is here.

PUMPKIN WONDERLAND
Screech owls hoot, are you listnin?
Beneath the moon, all is glistnin,
A real scary site, we're happy tonight,
Waiting in a Pumpkin wonderland.
In the patch, all is bright,
We await without a light,
A real scary sight, we're happy tonight,
Waiting in a Pumpkin wonderland.
In the patch we're watching for Great Pumpkin,
We've been waiting for this night all year.
For we've tried to be nice to everybody,
and to grow a pumpkin patch that is sincere!
Later on, while we're eating,
What we got Trick-or-treating,
We'll show all our sacks of Halloween snacks,
Waiting in a Pumpkin Wonderland.

I'M DREAMING OF THE GREAT PUMPKIN
I'm dreaming of the Great Pumpkin
Just like I do this time each year
When he bring nice toys
To good girls and boys
Who wait for him to appear,
I'm dreaming of the Great Pumpkin,
With every pumpkin card I write,
May your jack-o-lanterns burn bright.... When the Great Pumpkin visits you tonight.

Learning about Epitaphs

Objectives: Learn what epitaphs are Research famous epitaphs on Internet Write Suggested Celebrity Epitaphs

Materials: Internet Cutouts of tombstones (one or two for each student)

Method: Group activity

Procedure:
1. Discuss what epitaphs are. You might want to bring in some poetic devices such as rhymes, similes, metaphors, alliteration.

2. Research epitaphs using the Internet. A good site is http://www.alsirat.com/epitaphs/qtot.erich.html or do a supervised search; there are lots of sites that have epitaphs, but you might want to look at them first!

3. In groups, write epitaphs for fictional characters, actors, singers, sports stars, famous people in history, or whatever categories you like. For example DOROTHY: I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore! BOB BARKER: Come on Down! CAPTAIN KIRK: Beam me up, Scotty...NOW!! CHEVY CHASE: Wonderful father and husband. He's on permanent vacation now. My kids always like to write them to parents and friends.

4. Draw some simple tombstones, reproduce, and give one or two to each group. Students should put the epitaph on the tombstones and decorate with spider webs or whatever. You can either have them put the person's name on the front or let everyone try to guess whose tombstone it is and put the name on the back. We always make a huge cemetery on the wall outside my classroom with all the tombstones and other Halloween decorations.

Halloween coloring pages

Coloring pages

Bar Graph lesson

A fun math activity for fall. I did a great bar graphing center this month. We went on a walk around the playgrounds to point out signs of fall. We collected fallen leaves of different colors. The leaves were placed in a basket in the math center. Children were told to pick ten leaves out of the basket then graph the color of the leaf on a preprinted graph worksheet. (red, yellow, brown, green, mixed) They were able to make conclusions (the most, the least, etc.) and had a lot of fun doing it!

Turn outside recess into an art lesson

Nature Prints as Stationary Grades K-6th
Grades: K-6th
Objectives: Development of fine and gross motor skills and discovering a creative way of using nature in art.
Materials Needed: Leaves, grasses, ferns or evergreen twigs of interesting shapes, typing paper, masking tape, crayons.
Procedure: Gather the leaves or whatever type of greenery you choose. Place a single leaf or an arrangement on a table, underside up. Cover it with a piece of paper. Tape the paper firmly to the table with masking tape. Color the paper with crayons (one or more colors). Remove the tape. You can now use your nature prints as stationary to write to friends or relatives.


Look for animal tracks as you collect leaves, grass, and flowers.

Water Cycle Lesson Plan

Grade level: 3
Time: 40 minutes

Purpose:
Students will construct a mobile that shows the progression of water through its phases- solid, liquid, and gas. On the back of the mobile: students will name these phases, write the name of the process needed to change phases, and write three facts about that phase. This activity fits into the Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs) for water and weather in third-grade science.

 Materials: (this is enough for 20 lesson plans)

For the beginning: an ice cube, a cup of water, and a Ziploc bag of air.

For the lesson: 20 metal coat hangers, 60 yarn strands, 30 pieces of paper, scissors, watercolor paints, and a hole punch. If available, read The Magic School Bus: Wet All Over to introduce the water cycle in more depth.




Procedure:
1. Look at the ice, water, and bag of air. What do they all have in common? It’s water in all three phases. In the environment, water moves through all three of these phases and that’s called the water cycle.
2. Water may start as snow, which is frozen crystals of water, on a mountain and melt into a stream. The stream could run down to a lake and on a hot day, the sun could excite a water molecule and cause it to evaporate.
3. Stress that evaporation is the process of water moving from a liquid to a gas. Show the students the water in the cup and the bag of air to show the difference.
4. That water that evaporated from the lake to the air now can change back into a liquid in a process called condensation. The sun’s heat made the water excited enough to evaporate, so as the air gets colder around the water, it turns back into a liquid. This is called condensation.
5. This liquid water stays in the cloud and can go back to that same mountain, freeze, and snow down again.
6. This concept is called the Theory of the Conservation of Mass- all the water is conserved, or kept, in every phase change.
7. Now you guys can make your own mobile of the water cycle. Start with the snow and label the back with the phase change that takes it to liquid water. (Remember what that’s called when the water moved from snow to the stream? Melting.) To make the snow, use one piece of paper and make a paper snowflake.
8. Now do the same for liquid form and gas forms. Use a piece of paper and cut out a water drop for liquid. Use a piece of paper and cut out a cloud for the gas form.
9. After you finished painting the pieces and labeling them with the phase, the process to change phases, and some facts, hang them on your coat hanger with the yarn.
10. Now you have a mobile about the three water phases and some scientific terms to remember them!

Oates, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

Oates, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates (1966)

Her name was Connie. She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or
checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right. Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and
who hadn't much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it. "Stop gawking at yourself. Who are
you? You think you're so pretty?" she would say. Connie would raise her eyebrows at these familiar old complaints and look right
through her mother, into a shadowy vision of herself as she was right at that moment: she knew she was pretty and that was
everything. Her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were
gone and that was why she was always after Connie.
"Why don't you keep your room clean like your sister? How've you got your hair fixed—what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don't
see your sister using that junk."
Her sister June was twenty-four and still lived at home. She was a secretary in the high school Connie attended, and if that wasn't
bad enough—with her in the same building—she was so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time
by her mother and her mother's sisters. June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean the house and cooked and
Connie couldn't do a thing, her mind was all filled with trashy daydreams. Their father was away at work most of the time and when
he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to bed. He didn't bother talking
much to them, but around his bent head Connie's mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and she
herself was dead and it was all over. "She makes me want to throw up sometimes," she complained to her friends. She had a high,
breathless, amused voice that made everything she said sound a little forced, whether it was sincere or not.
There was one good thing: June went places with girl friends of hers, girls who were just as plain and steady as she, and so when
Connie wanted to do that her mother had no objections. The father of Connie's best girl friend drove the girls the three miles to town
and left them at a shopping plaza so they could walk through the stores or go to a movie, and when he came to pick them up again
at eleven he never bothered to ask what they had done.
They must have been familiar sights, walking around the shopping plaza in their shorts and flat ballerina slippers that always
scuffed the sidewalk, with charm bracelets jingling on their thin wrists; they would lean together to whisper and laugh secretly if
someone passed who amused or interested them. Connie had long dark blond hair that drew anyone's eye to it, and she wore part
of it pulled up on her head and puffed out and the rest of it she let fall down her back. She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked
one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home. Everything about her had two sides to it, one for
home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone
think she was hearing music in her head; her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright and pink on these
evenings out; her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home—"Ha, ha, very funny,"—but highpitched and nervous anywhere
else, like the jingling of the charms on her bracelet.
Sometimes they did go shopping or to a movie, but sometimes they went across the highway, ducking fast across the busy road, to
a drive-in restaurant where older kids hung out. The restaurant was shaped like a big bottle, though squatter than a real bottle, and
on its cap was a revolving figure of a grinning boy holding a hamburger aloft. One night in midsummer they ran across, breathless
with daring, and right away someone leaned out a car window and invited them over, but it was just a boy from high school they
didn't like. It made them feel good to be able to ignore him. They went up through the maze of parked and cruising cars to the brightlit,
fly-infested restaurant, their faces pleased and expectant as if they were entering a sacred building that loomed up out of the
night to give them what haven and blessing they yearned for. They sat at the counter and crossed their legs at the ankles, their thin
shoulders rigid with excitement, and listened to the music that made everything so good: the music was always in the background,
like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.
A boy named Eddie came in to talk with them. He sat backwards on his stool, turning himself jerkily around in semicircles and then
stopping and turning back again, and after a while he asked Connie if she would like something to eat. She said she would and so
she tapped her friend's arm on her way out—her friend pulled her face up into a brave, droll look—and Connie said she would meet
her at eleven, across the way. "I just hate to leave her like that," Connie turned away without Eddie noticing anything.
She spent three hours with him, at the restaurant where they ate hamburgers and drank Cokes in wax cups that were always
sweating, and then down an alley a mile or so away, and when he left her off at five to eleven only the movie house was still open at
the plaza. Her girl friend was there, talking with a boy. When Connie came up, the two girls smiled at each other and Connie said,
"How was the movie?" and the girl said, 'You should know." They rode off with the girl's father, sleepy and pleased, and Connie
couldn't help but look back at the darkened shopping plaza with its big empty parking lot and its signs that were faded and ghostly
now, and over at the drive-in restaurant where cars were still circling tirelessly. She couldn't hear the music at this distance.
Next morning June asked her how the movie was and Connie said, "So-so."
She and that girl and occasionally another girl went out several times a week, and the rest of the time Connie spent around the
house—it was summer vacation—getting in her mother s way and thinking, dreaming about the boys she met. But all the boys fell
back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of
the music and the humid night air of July. Connie's mother kept dragging her back to the daylight by finding things for her to do or
saying suddenly, 'What's this about the Pettinger girl?"
And Connie would say nervously, "Oh, her. That dope." She always drew thick clear lines between herself and such girls, and her
mother was simple and kind enough to believe it. Her mother was so simple, Connie thought, that it was maybe cruel to fool her so
much. Her mother went scuffling around the house in old bedroom slippers and complained over the telephone to one sister about
the other, then the other called up and the two of them complained about the third one. If June's name was mentioned her mother's
tone was approving, and if Connie's name was mentioned it was disapproving. This did not really mean she disliked Connie, and
actually Connie thought that her mother preferred her to June just because she was prettier, but the two of them kept up a pretense
of exasperation, a sense that they were tugging and struggling over something of little value to either of them. Sometimes, over
coffee, they were almost friends, but something would come up—some vexation that was like a fly buzzing suddenly around their
heads—and their faces went hard with contempt.
One Sunday Connie got up at eleven—none of them bothered with church—and washed her hair so that it could dry all day long in
the sun. Her parents and sister were going to a barbecue at an aunt's house and Connie said no, she wasn't interested, rolling her
eyes to let her mother know just what she thought of it. "Stay home alone then," her mother said sharply. Connie sat out back in a
lawn chair and watched them drive away, her father quiet and bald, hunched around so that he could back the car out, her mother
with a look that was still angry and not at all softened through the windshield, and in the back seat poor old June, all dressed up as
if she didn't know what a barbecue was, with all the running yelling kids and the flies. Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun,
dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto
thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was, not the way someone
like June would suppose but sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs; and when she opened her eyes she
hardly knew where she was, the back yard ran off into weeds and a fence-like line of trees and behind it the sky was perfectly blue
and still. The asbestos ranch house that was now three years old startled her—it looked small. She shook her head as if to get
awake.
It was too hot. She went inside the house and turned on the radio to drown out the quiet. She sat on the edge of her bed, barefoot,
and listened for an hour and a half to a program called XYZ Sunday Jamboree, record after record of hard, fast, shrieking songs
she sang along with, interspersed by exclamations from "Bobby King": "An' look here, you girls at Napoleon's—Son and Charley
want you to pay real close attention to this song coming up!"
And Connie paid close attention herself, bathed in a glow of slow-pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music itself
and lay languidly about the airless little room, breathed in and breathed out with each gentle rise and fall of her chest.
After a while she heard a car coming up the drive. She sat up at once, startled, because it couldn't be her father so soon. The gravel
kept crunching all the way in from the road—the driveway was long—and Connie ran to the window. It was a car she didn't know. It
was an open jalopy, painted a bright gold that caught the sunlight opaquely. Her heart began to pound and her fingers snatched at
her hair, checking it, and she whispered, "Christ. Christ," wondering how bad she looked. The car came to a stop at the side door
and the horn sounded four short taps, as if this were a signal Connie knew.
She went into the kitchen and approached the door slowly, then hung out the screen door, her bare toes curling down off the step.
There were two boys in the car and now she recognized the driver: he had shaggy, shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig
and he was grinning at her.
"I ain't late, am I?" he said.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Connie said.

"Toldja I'd be out, didn't I?"
"I don't even know who you are."
She spoke sullenly, careful to show no interest or pleasure, and he spoke in a fast, bright monotone. Connie looked past him to the
other boy, taking her time. He had fair brown hair, with a lock that fell onto his forehead. His sideburns gave him a fierce,
embarrassed look, but so far he hadn't even bothered to glance at her. Both boys wore sunglasses. The driver's glasses were
metallic and mirrored everything in miniature.
"You wanta come for a ride?" he said.
Connie smirked and let her hair fall loose over one shoulder.
"Don'tcha like my car? New paint job," he said. "Hey."
"What?"
"You're cute."
She pretended to fidget, chasing flies away from the door.
"Don'tcha believe me, or what?" he said.
"Look, I don't even know who you are," Connie said in disgust.
"Hey, Ellie's got a radio, see. Mine broke down." He lifted his friend's arm and showed her the little transistor radio the boy was
holding, and now Connie began to hear the music. It was the same program that was playing inside the house.
"Bobby King?" she said.
"I listen to him all the time. I think he's great."
"He's kind of great," Connie said reluctantly.
"Listen, that guy's great. He knows where the action is."
Connie blushed a little, because the glasses made it impossible for her to see just what this boy was looking at. She couldn't decide
if she liked him or if he was just a jerk, and so she dawdled in the doorway and wouldn't come down or go back inside. She said,
"What's all that stuff painted on your car?"
"Can'tcha read it?" He opened the door very carefully, as if he were afraid it might fall off. He slid out just as carefully, planting his
feet firmly on the ground, the tiny metallic world in his glasses slowing down like gelatine hardening, and in the midst of it Connie's
bright green blouse. "This here is my name, to begin with, he said. ARNOLD FRIEND was written in tarlike black letters on the side,
with a drawing of a round, grinning face that reminded Connie of a pumpkin, except it wore sunglasses. "I wanta introduce myself,
I'm Arnold Friend and that's my real name and I'm gonna be your friend, honey, and inside the car's Ellie Oscar, he's kinda shy."
Ellie brought his transistor radio up to his shoulder and balanced it there. "Now, these numbers are a secret code, honey," Arnold
Friend explained. He read off the numbers 33, 19, 17 and raised his eyebrows at her to see what she thought of that, but she didn't
think much of it. The left rear fender had been smashed and around it was written, on the gleaming gold background: DONE BY
CRAZY WOMAN DRIVER. Connie had to laugh at that. Arnold Friend was pleased at her laughter and looked up at her. "Around
the other side's a lot more —you wanta come and see them?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Why should I?"
"Don'tcha wanta see what's on the car? Don'tcha wanta go for a ride?"
"I don't know."
"Why not?"

"I got things to do."
"Like what?"
"Things."
He laughed as if she had said something funny. He slapped his thighs. He was standing in a strange way, leaning back against the
car as if he were balancing himself. He wasn't tall, only an inch or so taller than she would be if she came down to him. Connie liked
the way he was dressed, which was the way all of them dressed: tight faded jeans stuffed into black, scuffed boots, a belt that
pulled his waist in and showed how lean he was, and a white pull-over shirt that was a little soiled and showed the hard small
muscles of his arms and shoulders. He looked as if he probably did hard work, lifting and carrying things. Even his neck looked
muscular. And his face was a familiar face, somehow: the jaw and chin and cheeks slightly darkened because he hadn't shaved for
a day or two, and the nose long and hawklike, sniffing as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up and it was all a joke.
"Connie, you ain't telling the truth. This is your day set aside for a ride with me and you know it," he said, still laughing. The way he
straightened and recovered from his fit of laughing showed that it had been all fake.
"How do you know what my name is?" she said suspiciously.
"It's Connie."
"Maybe and maybe not."
"I know my Connie," he said, wagging his finger. Now she remembered him even better, back at the restaurant, and her cheeks
warmed at the thought of how she had sucked in her breath just at the moment she passed him—how she must have looked to him.
And he had remembered her. "Ellie and I come out here especially for you," he said. "Ellie can sit in back. How about it?"
"Where?"
"Where what?"
"Where're we going?"
He looked at her. He took off the sunglasses and she saw how pale the skin around his eyes was, like holes that were not in
shadow but instead in light. His eyes were like chips of broken glass that catch the light in an amiable way. He smiled. It was as if
the idea of going for a ride somewhere, to someplace, was a new idea to him.
"Just for a ride, Connie sweetheart."
"I never said my name was Connie," she said.
"But I know what it is. I know your name and all about you, lots of things," Arnold Friend said. He had not moved yet but stood still
leaning back against the side of his jalopy. "I took a special interest in you, such a pretty girl, and found out all about you—like I know
your parents and sister are gone somewheres and I know where and how long they're going to be gone, and I know who you were
with last night, and your best girl friend's name is Betty. Right?"
He spoke in a simple lilting voice, exactly as if he were reciting the words to a song. His smile assured her that everything was fine.
In the car Ellie turned up the volume on his radio and did not bother to look around at them.
"Ellie can sit in the back seat," Arnold Friend said. He indicated his friend with a casual jerk of his chin, as if Ellie did not count and
she should not bother with him.
"How'd you find out all that stuff?" Connie said.
"Listen: Betty Schultz and Tony Fitch and Jimmy Pettinger and Nancy Pettinger," he said in a chant. "Raymond Stanley and Bob
Hutter—"
"Do you know all those kids?"
"I know everybody."
"Look, you're kidding. You're not from around here."

"Sure."
"But—how come we never saw you before?"
"Sure you saw me before," he said. He looked down at his boots, as if he were a little offended. "You just don't remember."
"I guess I'd remember you," Connie said.
"Yeah?" He looked up at this, beaming. He was pleased. He began to mark time with the music from Ellie's radio, tapping his fists
lightly together. Connie looked away from his smile to the car, which was painted so bright it almost hurt her eyes to look at it. She
looked at that name, ARNOLD FRIEND. And up at the front fender was an expression that was familiar—MAN THE FLYING
SAUCERS. It was an expression kids had used the year before but didn't use this year. She looked at it for a while as if the words
meant something to her that she did not yet know.
"What're you thinking about? Huh?" Arnold Friend demanded. "Not worried about your hair blowing around in the car, are you?"
"No."
"Think I maybe can't drive good?"
"How do I know?"
"You're a hard girl to handle. How come?" he said. "Don't you know I'm your friend? Didn't you see me put my sign in the air when
you walked by?"
"What sign?"
"My sign." And he drew an X in the air, leaning out toward her. They were maybe ten feet apart. After his hand fell back to his side
the X was still in the air, almost visible. Connie let the screen door close and stood perfectly still inside it, listening to the music from
her radio and the boy's blend together. She stared at Arnold Friend. He stood there so stiffly relaxed, pretending to be relaxed, with
one hand idly on the door handle as if he were keeping himself up that way and had no intention of ever moving again. She
recognized most things about him, the tight jeans that showed his thighs and buttocks and the greasy leather boots and the tight
shirt, and even that slippery friendly smile of his, that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didn't want
to put into words. She recognized all this and also the singsong way he talked, slightly mocking, kidding, but serious and a little
melancholy, and she recognized the way he tapped one fist against the other in homage to the perpetual music behind him. But all
these things did not come together.
She said suddenly, "Hey, how old are you?"
His smiled faded. She could see then that he wasn't a kid, he was much older—thirty, maybe more. At this knowledge her heart
began to pound faster.
"That's a crazy thing to ask. Can'tcha see I'm your own age?"
"Like hell you are."
"Or maybe a couple years older. I'm eighteen."
"Eighteen?" she said doubtfully.
He grinned to reassure her and lines appeared at the corners of his mouth. His teeth were big and white. He grinned so broadly his
eyes became slits and she saw how thick the lashes were, thick and black as if painted with a black tarlike material. Then, abruptly,
he seemed to become embarrassed and looked over his shoulder at Ellie. "Him, he's crazy," he said. "Ain't he a riot? He's a nut, a
real character." Ellie was still listening to the music. His sunglasses told nothing about what he was thinking. He wore a bright
orange shirt unbuttoned halfway to show his chest, which was a pale, bluish chest and not muscular like Arnold Friend's. His shirt
collar was turned up all around and the very tips of the collar pointed out past his chin as if they were protecting him. He was
pressing the transistor radio up against his ear and sat there in a kind of daze, right in the sun.
"He's kinda strange," Connie said.
"Hey, she says you're kinda strange! Kinda strange!" Arnold Friend cried. He pounded on the car to get Ellie's attention. Ellie turned
for the first time and Connie saw with shock that he wasn't a kid either—he had a fair, hairless face, cheeks reddened slightly as if
the veins grew too close to the surface of his skin, the face of a forty-year-old baby. Connie felt a wave of dizziness rise in her at

this sight and she stared at him as if waiting for something to change the shock of the moment, make it all right again. Ellie's lips
kept shaping words, mumbling along with the words blasting in his ear.
"Maybe you two better go away," Connie said faintly.
"What? How come?" Arnold Friend cried. "We come out here to take you for a ride. It's Sunday." He had the voice of the man on the
radio now. It was the same voice, Connie thought. "Don'tcha know it's Sunday all day? And honey, no matter who you were with last
night, today you're with Arnold Friend and don't you forget it! Maybe you better step out here," he said, and this last was in a
different voice. It was a little flatter, as if the heat was finally getting to him.
"No. I got things to do."
"Hey."
"You two better leave."
"We ain't leaving until you come with us."
"Like hell I am—"
"Connie, don't fool around with me. I mean—I mean, don't fool around," he said, shaking his head. He laughed incredulously. He
placed his sunglasses on top of his head, carefully, as if he were indeed wearing a wig, and brought the stems down behind his
ears. Connie stared at him, another wave of dizziness and fear rising in her so that for a moment he wasn't even in focus but was
just a blur standing there against his gold car, and she had the idea that he had driven up the driveway all right but had come from
nowhere before that and belonged nowhere and that everything about him and even about the music that was so familiar to her was
only half real.
"If my father comes and sees you—"
"He ain't coming. He's at a barbecue."
"How do you know that?"
"Aunt Tillie's. Right now they're uh—they're drinking. Sitting around," he said vaguely, squinting as if he were staring all the way to
town and over to Aunt Tillie's back yard. Then the vision seemed to get clear and he nodded energetically. "Yeah. Sitting around.
There's your sister in a blue dress, huh? And high heels, the poor sad bitch—nothing like you, sweetheart! And your mother's helping
some fat woman with the corn, they're cleaning the corn—husking the corn—"
"What fat woman?" Connie cried.
"How do I know what fat woman, I don't know every goddamn fat woman in the world!" Arnold Friend laughed.
"Oh, that's Mrs. Hornsby . . . . Who invited her?" Connie said. She felt a little lightheaded. Her breath was coming quickly.
"She's too fat. I don't like them fat. I like them the way you are, honey," he said, smiling sleepily at her. They stared at each other for
a while through the screen door. He said softly, "Now, what you're going to do is this: you're going to come out that door. You re
going to sit up front with me and Ellie's going to sit in the back, the hell with Ellie, right? This isn't Ellie's date. You're my date. I'm
your lover, honey."
"What? You're crazy—"
"Yes, I'm your lover. You don't know what that is but you will," he said. "I know that too. I know all about you. But look: it's real nice
and you couldn't ask for nobody better than me, or more polite. I always keep my word. I'll tell you how it is, I'm always nice at first,
the first time. I'll hold you so tight you won't think you have to try to get away or pretend anything because you'll know you can't. And
I'll come inside you where it's all secret and you'll give in to me and you'll love me "
"Shut up! You're crazy!" Connie said. She backed away from the door. She put her hands up against her ears as if she'd heard
something terrible, something not meant for her. "People don't talk like that, you're crazy," she muttered. Her heart was almost too
big now for her chest and its pumping made sweat break out all over her. She looked out to see Arnold Friend pause and then take
a step toward the porch, lurching. He almost fell. But, like a clever drunken man, he managed to catch his balance. He wobbled in
his high boots and grabbed hold of one of the porch posts.
"Honey?" he said. "You still listening?"

"Get the hell out of here!"
"Be nice, honey. Listen."
"I'm going to call the police—"
He wobbled again and out of the side of his mouth came a fast spat curse, an aside not meant for her to hear. But even this
"Christ!" sounded forced. Then he began to smile again. She watched this smile come, awkward as if he were smiling from inside a
mask. His whole face was a mask, she thought wildly, tanned down to his throat but then running out as if he had plastered makeup
on his face but had forgotten about his throat.
"Honey—? Listen, here's how it is. I always tell the truth and I promise you this: I ain't coming in that house after you."
"You better not! I'm going to call the police if you—if you don't—"
"Honey," he said, talking right through her voice, "honey, I m not coming in there but you are coming out here. You know why?"
She was panting. The kitchen looked like a place she had never seen before, some room she had run inside but that wasn't good
enough, wasn't going to help her. The kitchen window had never had a curtain, after three years, and there were dishes in the sink
for her to do—probably—and if you ran your hand across the table you'd probably feel something sticky there.
"You listening, honey? Hey?" "—going to call the police—"
"Soon as you touch the phone I don't need to keep my promise and can come inside. You won't want that."
She rushed forward and tried to lock the door. Her fingers were shaking. "But why lock it," Arnold Friend said gently, talking right
into her face. "It's just a screen door. It's just nothing." One of his boots was at a strange angle, as if his foot wasn't in it. It pointed
out to the left, bent at the ankle. "I mean, anybody can break through a screen door and glass and wood and iron or anything else if
he needs to, anybody at all, and specially Arnold Friend. If the place got lit up with a fire, honey, you'd come runnin' out into my
arms, right into my arms an' safe at home—like you knew I was your lover and'd stopped fooling around. I don't mind a nice shy girl
but I don't like no fooling around." Part of those words were spoken with a slight rhythmic lilt, and Connie somehow recognized
them—the echo of a song from last year, about a girl rushing into her boy friend's arms and coming home again—
Connie stood barefoot on the linoleum floor, staring at him. "What do you want?" she whispered.
"I want you," he said.
"What?"
"Seen you that night and thought, that's the one, yes sir. I never needed to look anymore."
"But my father's coming back. He's coming to get me. I had to wash my hair first—'' She spoke in a dry, rapid voice, hardly raising it
for him to hear.
"No, your daddy is not coming and yes, you had to wash your hair and you washed it for me. It's nice and shining and all for me. I
thank you sweetheart," he said with a mock bow, but again he almost lost his balance. He had to bend and adjust his boots.
Evidently his feet did not go all the way down; the boots must have been stuffed with something so that he would seem taller.
Connie stared out at him and behind him at Ellie in the car, who seemed to be looking off toward Connie's right, into nothing. This
Ellie said, pulling the words out of the air one after another as if he were just discovering them, "You want me to pull out the
phone?"
"Shut your mouth and keep it shut," Arnold Friend said, his face red from bending over or maybe from embarrassment because
Connie had seen his boots. "This ain't none of your business."
"What—what are you doing? What do you want?" Connie said. "If I call the police they'll get you, they'll arrest you—"
"Promise was not to come in unless you touch that phone, and I'll keep that promise," he said. He resumed his erect position and
tried to force his shoulders back. He sounded like a hero in a movie, declaring something important. But he spoke too loudly and it
was as if he were speaking to someone behind Connie. "I ain't made plans for coming in that house where I don't belong but just for
you to come out to me, the way you should. Don't you know who I am?"
"You're crazy," she whispered. She backed away from the door but did not want to go into another part of the house, as if this would

give him permission to come through the door. "What do you . . . you're crazy, you. . . ."
"Huh? What're you saying, honey?"
Her eyes darted everywhere in the kitchen. She could not remember what it was, this room.
"This is how it is, honey: you come out and we'll drive away, have a nice ride. But if you don't come out we're gonna wait till your
people come home and then they're all going to get it."
"You want that telephone pulled out?" Ellie said. He held the radio away from his ear and grimaced, as if without the radio the air
was too much for him.
"I toldja shut up, Ellie," Arnold Friend said, "you're deaf, get a hearing aid, right? Fix yourself up. This little girl's no trouble and's
gonna be nice to me, so Ellie keep to yourself, this ain't your date right? Don't hem in on me, don't hog, don't crush, don't bird dog,
don't trail me," he said in a rapid, meaningless voice, as if he were running through all the expressions he'd learned but was no
longer sure which of them was in style, then rushing on to new ones, making them up with his eyes closed. "Don't crawl under my
fence, don't squeeze in my chipmonk hole, don't sniff my glue, suck my popsicle, keep your own greasy fingers on yourself!" He
shaded his eyes and peered in at Connie, who was backed against the kitchen table. "Don't mind him, honey, he's just a creep.
He's a dope. Right? I'm the boy for you, and like I said, you come out here nice like a lady and give me your hand, and nobody else
gets hurt, I mean, your nice old bald-headed daddy and your mummy and your sister in her high heels. Because listen: why bring
them in this?"
"Leave me alone," Connie whispered.
"Hey, you know that old woman down the road, the one with the chickens and stuff—you know her?"
"She's dead!"
"Dead? What? You know her?" Arnold Friend said.
"She's dead—"
"Don't you like her?"
"She's dead—she's—she isn't here any more—"
But don't you like her, I mean, you got something against her? Some grudge or something?" Then his voice dipped as if he were
conscious of a rudeness. He touched the sunglasses perched up on top of his head as if to make sure they were still there. "Now,
you be a good girl."
'What are you going to do?"
"Just two things, or maybe three," Arnold Friend said. "But I promise it won't last long and you'll like me the way you get to like
people you're close to. You will. It's all over for you here, so come on out. You don't want your people in any trouble, do you?"
She turned and bumped against a chair or something, hurting her leg, but she ran into the back room and picked up the telephone.
Something roared in her ear, a tiny roaring, and she was so sick with fear that she could do nothing but listen to it—the telephone
was clammy and very heavy and her fingers groped down to the dial but were too weak to touch it. She began to scream into the
phone, into the roaring. She cried out, she cried for her mother, she felt her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it
were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness. A noisy sorrowful wailing rose all about
her and she was locked inside it the way she was locked inside this house.
After a while she could hear again. She was sitting on the floor with her wet back against the wall.
Arnold Friend was saying from the door, "That's a good girl. Put the phone back."
She kicked the phone away from her.
"No, honey. Pick it up. Put it back right."
She picked it up and put it back. The dial tone stopped.
"That's a good girl. Now, you come outside."

She was hollow with what had been fear but what was now just an emptiness. All that screaming had blasted it out of her. She sat,
one leg cramped under her, and deep inside her brain was something like a pinpoint of light that kept going and would not let her
relax. She thought, I'm not going to see my mother again. She thought, I'm not going to sleep in my bed again. Her bright green
blouse was all wet.
Arnold Friend said, in a gentle-loud voice that was like a stage voice, "The place where you came from ain't there any more, and
where you had in mind to go is cancelled out. This place you are now—inside your daddy's house—is nothing but a cardboard box I
can knock down any time. You know that and always did know it. You hear me?"
She thought, I have got to think. I have got to know what to do.
"We'll go out to a nice field, out in the country here where it smells so nice and it's sunny," Arnold Friend said. "I'll have my arms
tight around you so you won't need to try to get away and I'll show you what love is like, what it does. The hell with this house! It
looks solid all right," he said. He ran a fingernail down the screen and the noise did not make Connie shiver, as it would have the
day before. "Now, put your hand on your heart, honey. Feel that? That feels solid too but we know better. Be nice to me, be sweet
like you can because what else is there for a girl like you but to be sweet and pretty and give in?—and get away before her people
come back?"
She felt her pounding heart. Her hand seemed to enclose it. She thought for the first time in her life that it was nothing that was
hers, that belonged to her, but just a pounding, living thing inside this body that wasn't really hers either.
"You don't want them to get hurt," Arnold Friend went on. "Now, get up, honey. Get up all by yourself."
She stood.
"Now, turn this way. That's right. Come over here to me.— Ellie, put that away, didn't I tell you? You dope. You miserable creepy
dope," Arnold Friend said. His words were not angry but only part of an incantation. The incantation was kindly. "Now come out
through the kitchen to me, honey, and let's see a smile, try it, you re a brave, sweet little girl and now they're eating corn and hot
dogs cooked to bursting over an outdoor fire, and they don't know one thing about you and never did and honey, you're better than
them because not a one of them would have done this for you."
Connie felt the linoleum under her feet; it was cool. She brushed her hair back out of her eyes. Arnold Friend let go of the post
tentatively and opened his arms for her, his elbows pointing in toward each other and his wrists limp, to show that this was an
embarrassed embrace and a little mocking, he didn't want to make her self-conscious.
She put out her hand against the screen. She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were back safe somewhere in
the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited.
"My sweet little blue-eyed girl," he said in a half-sung sigh that had nothing to do with her brown eyes but was taken up just the
same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him—so much land that Connie had never seen before
and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.

Edgar Allan Poe Storyteller

https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/edgar_allan_poe_storyteller.pdf

Edgar Allan Poe: Storyteller. Author: Edgar Allan Poe.

Seven popular Poe stories, slightly adapted for language learners. Stories are suitable for high-intermediate and advanced learners of English. 

Edgar Allan Poe: Storyteller contains seven popular Poe stories: "The Mask of the Red Death," "The Story of William Wilson," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Black Cat," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Cask of Amontillado." The stories are slightly adapted for language learners and are suitable for high-intermediate and advanced learners of English.

“The Elevator” by William Sleator

“The Elevator” by William Sleator
It was an old building with an old elevator—a very small elevator, with a maximum capacity of three people.
Martin, a thin twelve-year-old, felt nervous in it from the first day he and his father moved into the apartment.
Of course, he was always uncomfortable in elevators, afraid they would fall, but there was something especially
unpleasant about this one. Perhaps it was its baleful atmosphere due to the light from the single fluorescent
ceiling strip, bleak and dim on the dirty walls. Perhaps the problem was the door, which never stayed open quite
long enough, and slammed shut with such ominous, clanging finality. Perhaps it was the way the mechanism
shuddered in a kind of exhaustion each time it left a floor, as though it might never reach the next one. Maybe it
was simply the dimensions of the contraption that bothered him, so small that it felt uncomfortably crowded,
even when there was only one other person in it.
Coming home from school the day after they moved in, Martin tried the stairs. But they were almost as bad,
windowless, shadowy, with several dark landings where the light bulbs had burned out. His footsteps echoed
behind him like slaps on the cement, as though there was another person climbing, getting closer. By the time
he reached the seventeenth floor, which seemed to take forever, he was winded and gasping.
His father, who worked at home, wanted to know why he was so out of breath. “But why didn’t you take the
elevator?” he asked, frowning at Martin when he explained the stairs. Not only are you skinny and weak, his
expression seemed to say, but you’re also a coward. After that, Martin forced himself to take the elevator. He
would have to get used to it, he told himself, just the way he got used to be being bullied at school, and always
picked last when they chose teams. The elevator was an undeniable fact of life.
He didn’t get used to it. He remained tense in the trembling little box, his eyes fixed on the numbers over the
door that blinked on and off so haltingly, as if any moment they might simply give up. Sometimes, he forced
himself to look away from them, to the Emergency Stop button or the red Alarm button. What would happen if
he pushed one of them? Would a bell ring? Would the elevator stop between floors? And if it did, how would
they get him out?
That was what he hated about being alone in the thing—the fear of being trapped in there for hours by himself.
But it wasn’t much better when there were other p
And then, against his will, his eyes slipped back to her face. She was still watching him. Her nose tilted up;
there was a large space between her nostrils and her upper lip, giving her a piggish look. He looked away again,
clenching his teeth, fighting the impulse to squeeze his eyes shut against her.
She had to be crazy. Why else would she stare at him this way? What was she going to do next?
She did nothing. She only watched him, breathing audibly, until the elevator reached the first floor at last.
Martin would have rushed past to her get out, but there was no room. He could only wait as she turned—
reluctantly it seemed to him—and moved slowly out into the lobby. And they he ran. He didn’t care what she
thought. He ran past her, outside into the fresh air, and then he ran almost all the way to school. He had never
felt such relief in his life.
He thought about her all day. Did she live in the building? He had never seen her before, and the building
wasn’t very big—only four apartments on each floor. It seemed likely that she didn’t live there and had only
been visiting somebody.
But if she were only visiting somebody, why was she leaving the building at seven thirty in the morning?
People didn’t make visits at that time of day. Did that mean she did live in the building? If so, it was likely—it
was a certainty—that sometime he would be riding on the elevator with her again.
He was apprehensive as he approached the building after school. In the lobby, he considered the stairs. But that
was ridiculous. Why should he be afraid of an old lady? If he was afraid of her, if he let it control him, then he
was worse than all the names they called him at school. He pressed the button; he stepped into the empty
elevator. He stared at the lights, urging the elevator in. It stopped on three.
At least it’s not fourteen, he told himself; the person she was visiting lives on fourteen. He watched the door
slide open—revealing a green coat, a piggish face, blue eyes already fixed on him as though she knew he’d be
there.
It wasn’t possible. It was like a nightmare. But there she was, massively real. “Going up!” he said, his voice a
humiliating squeak.
She nodded, her flesh quivering, and stepped on. The door slammed. He watched her pudgy hand move toward
the buttons. She pressed not fourteen, but eighteen, the top floor, one floor above his own. The elevator
trembled and began its ascent. The fat lady watched him.
He knew she had gotten on at fourteen this morning. So why was she on three, going up to eighteen now? The
only floors he ever went on were seventeen and one. What was she doing? Had she been waiting for him? Was
she riding with him on purpose?
But that was crazy. Maybe she had lots of friends in the building. Or else she was a cleaning lady who worked
in different apartments. That had to be it. He felt her eyes on him as he stared at the numbers slowly blinking on
and off—slower than usual it seemed to him. Maybe the elevator was having trouble because of how heavy she
was. It was supposed to carry three adults, but it was old. What if got stuck between floors? What if it fell?
They were on five now. It occurred to him to press seven, get off there, and walk the rest of the way. And he
would have done it, if he could reach the buttons. But there was no room to past her without squeezing against
her, and he could not bear the thought of any physical contact with her. He concentrated on being in his room.
He would be home soon, only another minute or so. He could stand anything for a minute, even this crazy lady
watching him.
Unless the elevator got stuck between floors. Then what would he do? He tried to push the thought away, but it
kept coming back. He looked at her. She was still staring at him, no expression at all on her squashed little
features.
When the elevator stopped on his floor, she barely moved out of the way. He had to inch past her, rubbing
against her horrible scratchy coat, terrified the door would close before he made it through. She quickly turned
and watched him as the door slammed shut. And he thought, Now she knows I live on seventeen.
“Did you ever notice a strange fat lady on the elevator?” he asked his father that evening.
“Can’t say as I have,” he said, not looking away from the television.
He knew he was probably making a mistake, but he had to tell somebody. “Well, she was on the elevator with
me twice today. And the funny thing is, she just kept staring at me, she never stopped looking at me for a
minute. You think…you know anybody that has a weird cleaning lady or anything?”
“What are you so worked up about now?” his father said turning impatiently away from the television.
“I’m not worked up. It was just funny the she kept staring at me. You know how people never look at each other
in the elevator. Well, she just kept looking at me.”
“What am I going to do with you, Martin?” his father said. He sighed and shook his head. “Now, you’re afraid
of some poor old lady.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You’re afraid,” his father said, with total assurance. “When are you going to grow up and act like a man? Are
you going to be timid all your life?”
He managed not cry until he got to his room—but his father probably knew he way crying anyway. He slept
very little.
And in the morning, when the elevator door opened, the fat lady was waiting for him.
She was expecting him. She knew he lived on seventeen. He stood there, unable to move, and then backed
away. And as he did so, her expression changed. She smiled as the door slammed.
He ran for the stairs. Luckily, the unlit flight on which he fell was between sixteen and fifteen. He only had to
drag himself up one and a half flights with the terrible pain in his leg, His father was silent on the way to
hospital, disappointed and annoyed at him for being such a coward and a fool.
It was a simple fracture. He didn’t need a wheelchair, only a cast and crutches. But he was condemned to the
elevator now. Was that why the fat lady had smiled? Had she known it would happen this way?
At least his father was with him on the elevator on the way back from the hospital. There was no room for the
fat lady to get on. And even if she did, his father would see her, he would realize how peculiar she was, and
then maybe he would understand. And once they got home, he could stay in the apartment for a few days—the
doctor said he should use the leg as little as possible. A week, maybe—a whole week without getting in the
elevator. Riding up with his father, leaning on his crutches, he looked around the little cubicle and felt a kind of
triumph. He had beaten the elevator, and the fat lady, for the time being. And the rest of the week was very far
away.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” his father reached out his hand and pressed nine.
“What are you doing? You’re not getting off, are you?” he asked him, trying not to sound panicky.
“I promised Terry Ullman I’d drop in on her,” his father said, looking at his watch as he stepped off.
“Let me go with you. I want to visit her, too,” Martin pleaded, struggling forward on his crutches.
But the door was already closing. “Afraid to be on the elevator alone?” his father said, with a look of total
scorn. “Grow up, Martin.” The door slammed shut.
Martin hobbled to the buttons and pressed nine, but it didn’t do any good. The elevator stopped at ten, where the
fat lady was waiting for him. She moved in quickly; he was too slow, too unsteady on his crutches to work his
way past her in time. The door sealed them in; the elevator started up.
“Hello Martin,” she said, and laughed, and pushed the Stop button.

Saki The Interlopers

In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the Carpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the range of his vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for whose presence he kept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman's calendar as lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled the dark forest in quest of a human enemy.

     The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded, but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner's territorial possessions. A famous law suit, in the days of his grandfather, had wrested it from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family of petty landowners; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgment of the Courts, and a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandals had embittered the relationships between the families for three generations. The neighbour feud had grown into a personal one since Ulrich had come to be head of his family; if there was a man in the world whom he detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of the quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputed border-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or been compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in the way; as boys they had thirsted for one another's blood, as men each prayed that misfortune might fall on the other, and this wind-scourged winter night Ulrich had banded together his foresters to watch the dark forest, not in quest of four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out for the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across the land boundary. The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollows during a storm-wind, were running like driven things to-night, and there was movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleep through the dark hours. Assuredly there was a disturbing element in the forest, and Ulrich could guess the quarter from whence it came.

He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in ambush on the crest of the hill, and wandered far down the steep slopes amid the wild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree trunks and listening through the whistling and skirling of the wind and the restless beating of the branches for sight and sound of the marauders. If only on this wild night, in this dark, lone spot, he might come across Georg Znaeym, man to man, with none to witness - that was the wish that was uppermost in his thoughts. And as he stepped round the trunk of a huge beech he came face to face with the man he sought.

     The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder uppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to the passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the code of a restraining civilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down his neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an offence against his hearth and honour. And before the moment of hesitation had given way to action a deed of Nature's own violence overwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered by a splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a mass of falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitz found himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and the other held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches, while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting-boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if his fractures were not as serious as they might have been, at least it was evident that he could not move from his present position till some one came to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of his face, and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashes before he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his side, so near that under ordinary circumstances he could almost have touched him, lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, but obviously as helplessly pinioned down as himself. All round them lay a thick- strewn wreckage of splintered branches and broken twigs.

 Relief at being alive and exasperation at his captive plight brought a strange medley of pious thank-offerings and sharp curses to Ulrich's lips. Georg, who was early blinded with the blood which trickled across his eyes, stopped his struggling for a moment to listen, and then gave a short, snarling laugh.

     "So you're not killed, as you ought to be, but you're caught, anyway," he cried; "caught fast. Ho, what a jest, Ulrich von Gradwitz snared in his stolen forest. There's real justice for you!"

     And he laughed again, mockingly and savagely.

     "I'm caught in my own forest-land," retorted Ulrich. "When my men come to release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were in a better plight than caught poaching on a neighbour's land, shame on you."

     Georg was silent for a moment; then he answered quietly:

     "Are you sure that your men will find much to release? I have men, too, in the forest to-night, close behind me, and THEY will be here first and do the releasing. When they drag me out from under these damned branches it won't need much clumsiness on their part to roll this mass of trunk right over on the top of you. Your men will find you dead under a fallen beech tree. For form's sake I shall send my condolences to your family."

     "It is a useful hint," said Ulrich fiercely. "My men had orders to follow in ten minutes time, seven of which must have gone by already, and when they get me out - I will remember the hint. Only as you will have met your death poaching on my lands I don't think I can decently send any message of condolence to your family."

     "Good," snarled Georg, "good. We fight this quarrel out to the death, you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to come between us. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz."



"The same to you, Georg Znaeym, forest-thief, game-snatcher."

     Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before them, for each knew that it might be long before his men would seek him out or find him; it was a bare matter of chance which party would arrive first on the scene.

     Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves from the mass of wood that held them down; Ulrich limited his endeavours to an effort to bring his one partially free arm near enough to his outer coat-pocket to draw out his wine-flask. Even when he had accomplished that operation it was long before he could manage the unscrewing of the stopper or get any of the liquid down his throat. But what a Heaven-sent draught it seemed! It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen as yet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have been the case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the wine was warming and reviving to the wounded man, and he looked across with something like a throb of pity to where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of pain and weariness from crossing his lips.

     "Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you?" asked Ulrich suddenly; "there is good wine in it, and one may as well be as comfortable as one can. Let us drink, even if to-night one of us dies."

     "No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood caked round my eyes," said Georg, "and in any case I don't drink wine with an enemy."

     Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the weary screeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming and growing in his brain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked across at the man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion. In the pain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred seemed to be dying down.


 "Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first. It was a fair compact. But as for me, I've changed my mind. If my men are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though you were my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over this stupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in a breath of wind. Lying here to-night thinking I've come to think we've been rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the old quarrel I - I will ask you to be my friend."

     Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he had fainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and in jerks.

     "How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the market-square together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a von Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace there would be among the forester folk if we ended our feud to-night. And if we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to interfere, no interlopers from outside ... You would come and keep the Sylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and feast on some high day at your castle ... I would never fire a shot on your land, save when you invited me as a guest; and you should come and shoot with me down in the marshes where the wildfowl are. In all the countryside there are none that could hinder if we willed to make peace. I never thought to have wanted to do other than hate you all my life, but I think I have changed my mind about things too, this last half-hour. And you offered me your wineflask ... Ulrich von Gradwitz, I will be your friend."

     For a space both men were silent, turning over in their minds the wonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring about. In the cold, gloomy forest, with the wind tearing in fitful gusts through the naked branches and whistling round the tree-trunks, they lay and waited for the help that would now bring release and succour to both parties. And each prayed a private prayer that his men might be the first to arrive, so that he might be the first to show honourable attention to the enemy that had become a friend.


 Presently, as the wind dropped for a moment, Ulrich broke silence.

     "Let's shout for help," he said; he said; "in this lull our voices may carry a little way."

     "They won't carry far through the trees and undergrowth," said Georg, "but we can try. Together, then."

     The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call.

     "Together again," said Ulrich a few minutes later, after listening in vain for an answering halloo.

     "I heard nothing but the pestilential wind," said Georg hoarsely.

     There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave a joyful cry.

     "I can see figures coming through the wood. They are following in the way I came down the hillside."

     Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could muster.

     "They hear us! They've stopped. Now they see us. They're running down the hill towards us," cried Ulrich.

     "How many of them are there?" asked Georg.

     "I can't see distinctly," said Ulrich; "nine or ten,"

     "Then they are yours," said Georg; "I had only seven out with me."

     "They are making all the speed they can, brave lads," said Ulrich gladly.

     "Are they your men?" asked Georg. "Are they your men?" he repeated impatiently as Ulrich did not answer.

     "No," said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a man unstrung with hideous fear.

     "Who are they?" asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the other would gladly not have seen.

  "Wolves."

The Most Dangerous Game. by Richard Connell

The Most Dangerous Game.

by Richard Connell (1893-1949)

"OFF THERE to the right--somewhere--is a large island," said Whitney."
It's rather a mystery--"

"What island is it?" Rainsford asked.

"The old charts call it `Ship-Trap Island,"' Whitney replied." A
suggestive name, isn't it? Sailors have a curious dread of the place. I
don't know why. Some superstition--"

"Can't see it," remarked Rainsford, trying to peer through the dank
tropical night that was palpable as it pressed its thick warm blackness
in upon the yacht.

"You've good eyes," said Whitney, with a laugh," and I've seen you pick
off a moose moving in the brown fall bush at four hundred yards, but
even you can't see four miles or so through a moonless Caribbean night."

"Nor four yards," admitted Rainsford. "Ugh! It's like moist black velvet."

"It will be light enough in Rio," promised Whitney. "We should make it
in a few days. I hope the jaguar guns have come from Purdey's. We should
have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great sport, hunting."

"The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford.

"For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar."

"Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter,
not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?"

"Perhaps the jaguar does," observed Whitney.

"Bah! They've no understanding."

"Even so, I rather think they understand one thing--fear. The fear of
pain and the fear of death."

"Nonsense," laughed Rainsford. "This hot weather is making you soft,
Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes--the hunters
and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters. Do you think we've
passed that island yet?"

"I can't tell in the dark. I hope so."

"Why? " asked Rainsford.

"The place has a reputation--a bad one."

"Cannibals?" suggested Rainsford.

"Hardly. Even cannibals wouldn't live in such a God-forsaken place. But
it's gotten into sailor lore, somehow. Didn't you notice that the crew's
nerves seemed a bit jumpy today?"

"They were a bit strange, now you mention it. Even Captain Nielsen--"

"Yes, even that tough-minded old Swede, who'd go up to the devil himself
and ask him for a light. Those fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw
there before. All I could get out of him was `This place has an evil
name among seafaring men, sir.' Then he said to me, very gravely, `Don't
you feel anything?'--as if the air about us was actually poisonous. Now,
you mustn't laugh when I tell you this--I did feel something like a
sudden chill.

"There was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a plate-glass window. We
were drawing near the island then. What I felt was a--a mental chill; a
sort of sudden dread."

"Pure imagination," said Rainsford.

"One superstitious sailor can taint the whole ship's company with his fear."

"Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense that tells
them when they are in danger. Sometimes I think evil is a tangible
thing--with wave lengths, just as sound and light have. An evil place
can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. Anyhow, I'm glad we're
getting out of this zone. Well, I think I'll turn in now, Rainsford."

"I'm not sleepy," said Rainsford. "I'm going to smoke another pipe up on
the afterdeck."

"Good night, then, Rainsford. See you at breakfast."

"Right. Good night, Whitney."

There was no sound in the night as Rainsford sat there but the muffled
throb of the engine that drove the yacht swiftly through the darkness,
and the swish and ripple of the wash of the propeller.

Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his
favorite brier. The sensuous drowsiness of the night was on him." It's
so dark," he thought, "that I could sleep without closing my eyes; the
night would be my eyelids--"

An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his
ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he heard the
sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a
gun three times.

Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He
strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but
it was like trying to see through a blanket. He leaped upon the rail and
balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a
rope, was knocked from his mouth. He lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry
came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost
his balance. The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of
the Caribbean Sea dosed over his head.

He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from
the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his
open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately he struck out with
strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped
before he had swum fifty feet. A certain coolheadedness had come to him;
it was not the first time he had been in a tight place. There was a
chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but
that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He
wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. The
lights of the yacht became faint and ever-vanishing fireflies; then they
were blotted out entirely by the night.

Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the right, and
doggedly he swam in that direction, swimming with slow, deliberate
strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly endless time he fought
the sea. He began to count his strokes; he could do possibly a hundred
more and then--

Rainsford heard a sound. It came out of the darkness, a high screaming
sound, the sound of an animal in an extremity of anguish and terror.

He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did not try to;
with fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He heard it again; then it
was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato.

"Pistol shot," muttered Rainsford, swimming on.

Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to his ears--the
most welcome he had ever heard--the muttering and growling of the sea
breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on the rocks before he saw
them; on a night less calm he would have been shattered against them.
With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters.
Jagged crags appeared to jut up into the opaqueness; he forced himself
upward, hand over hand. Gasping, his hands raw, he reached a flat place
at the top. Dense jungle came down to the very edge of the cliffs. What
perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold for him did not
concern Rainsford just then. All he knew was that he was safe from his
enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on him. He flung himself
down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of
his life.

When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was
late in the afternoon. Sleep had given him new vigor; a sharp hunger was
picking at him. He looked about him, almost cheerfully.

"Where there are pistol shots, there are men. Where there are men, there
is food," he thought. But what kind of men, he wondered, in so
forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle
fringed the shore.

He saw no sign of a trail through the closely knit web of weeds and
trees; it was easier to go along the shore, and Rainsford floundered
along by the water. Not far from where he landed, he stopped.

Some wounded thing--by the evidence, a large animal--had thrashed about
in the underbrush; the jungle weeds were crushed down and the moss was
lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained crimson. A small, glittering
object not far away caught Rainsford's eye and he picked it up. It was
an empty cartridge.

"A twenty-two," he remarked. "That's odd. It must have been a fairly
large animal too. The hunter had his nerve with him to tackle it with a
light gun. It's clear that the brute put up a fight. I suppose the first
three shots I heard was when the hunter flushed his quarry and wounded
it. The last shot was when he trailed it here and finished it."

He examined the ground closely and found what he had hoped to find--the
print of hunting boots. They pointed along the cliff in the direction he
had been going. Eagerly he hurried along, now slipping on a rotten log
or a loose stone, but making headway; night was beginning to settle down
on the island.

Bleak darkness was blacking out the sea and jungle when Rainsford
sighted the lights. He came upon them as he turned a crook in the coast
line; and his first thought was that be had come upon a village, for
there were many lights. But as he forged along he saw to his great
astonishment that all the lights were in one enormous building--a lofty
structure with pointed towers plunging upward into the gloom. His eyes
made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set on a
high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down to where the sea
licked greedy lips in the shadows.

"Mirage," thought Rainsford. But it was no mirage, he found, when he
opened the tall spiked iron gate. The stone steps were real enough; the
massive door with a leering gargoyle for a knocker was real enough; yet
above it all hung an air of unreality.

He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never
before been used. He let it fall, and it startled him with its booming
loudness. He thought he heard steps within; the door remained closed.
Again Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall. The door
opened then--opened as suddenly as if it were on a spring--and Rainsford
stood blinking in the river of glaring gold light that poured out. The
first thing Rainsford's eyes discerned was the largest man Rainsford had
ever seen--a gigantic creature, solidly made and black bearded to the
waist. In his hand the man held a long-barreled revolver, and he was
pointing it straight at Rainsford's heart.

Out of the snarl of beard two small eyes regarded Rainsford.

"Don't be alarmed," said Rainsford, with a smile which he hoped was
disarming. "I'm no robber. I fell off a yacht. My name is Sanger
Rainsford of New York City."

The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver pointing as
rigidly as if the giant were a statue. He gave no sign that he
understood Rainsford's words, or that he had even heard them. He was
dressed in uniform--a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan.

"I'm Sanger Rainsford of New York," Rainsford began again. "I fell off a
yacht. I am hungry."

The man's only answer was to raise with his thumb the hammer of his
revolver. Then Rainsford saw the man's free hand go to his forehead in a
military salute, and he saw him click his heels together and stand at
attention. Another man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect,
slender man in evening clothes. He advanced to Rainsford and held out
his hand.

In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it added
precision and deliberateness, he said, "It is a very great pleasure and
honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated hunter, to my home."

Automatically Rainsford shook the man's hand.

"I've read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see,"
explained the man. "I am General Zaroff."

Rainsford's first impression was that the man was singularly handsome;
his second was that there was an original, almost bizarre quality about
the general's face. He was a tall man past middle age, for his hair was
a vivid white; but his thick eyebrows and pointed military mustache were
as black as the night from which Rainsford had come. His eyes, too, were
black and very bright. He had high cheekbones, a sharpcut nose, a spare,
dark face--the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an
aristocrat. Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a sign.
The giant put away his pistol, saluted, withdrew.

"Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow," remarked the general, "but he has
the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow, but, I'm afraid,
like all his race, a bit of a savage."

"Is he Russian?"

"He is a Cossack," said the general, and his smile showed red lips and
pointed teeth. "So am I."

"Come," he said, "we shouldn't be chatting here. We can talk later. Now
you want clothes, food, rest. You shall have them. This is a
most-restful spot."

Ivan had reappeared, and the general spoke to him with lips that moved
but gave forth no sound.

"Follow Ivan, if you please, Mr. Rainsford," said the general. "I was
about to have my dinner when you came. I'll wait for you. You'll find
that my clothes will fit you, I think."

It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopied bed big enough
for six men that Rainsford followed the silent giant. Ivan laid out an
evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on, noticed that it came from
a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of
duke.

The dining room to which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable.
There was a medieval magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall
of feudal times with its oaken panels, its high ceiling, its vast
refectory tables where twoscore men could sit down to eat. About the
hall were mounted heads of many animals--lions, tigers, elephants,
moose, bears; larger or more perfect specimens Rainsford had never seen.
At the great table the general was sitting, alone.

"You'll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford," he suggested. The cocktail was
surpassingly good; and, Rainsford noted, the table apointments were of
the finest--the linen, the crystal, the silver, the china.

They were eating /borsch/, the rich, red soup with whipped cream so dear
to Russian palates. Half apologetically General Zaroff said, "We do our
best to preserve the amenities of civilization here. Please forgive any
lapses. We are well off the beaten track, you know. Do you think the
champagne has suffered from its long ocean trip?"

"Not in the least," declared Rainsford. He was finding the general a
most thoughtful and affable host, a true cosmopolite. But there was one
small trait of .the general's that made Rainsford uncomfortable.
Whenever he looked up from his plate he found the general studying him,
appraising him narrowly.

"Perhaps," said General Zaroff, "you were surprised that I recognized
your name. You see, I read all books on hunting published in English,
French, and Russian. I have but one passion in my life, Mr. Rains. ford,
and it is the hunt."

"You have some wonderful heads here," said Rainsford as he ate a
particularly well-cooked filet mignon. "That Cape buffalo is the
largest I ever saw."

"Oh, that fellow. Yes, he was a monster."

"Did he charge you?"

"Hurled me against a tree," said the general. "Fractured my skull. But I
got the brute."

"I've always thought," said Rains{ord, "that the Cape buffalo is the
most dangerous of all big game."

For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his curious
red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly, "No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape
buffalo is not the most dangerous big game." He sipped his wine. "Here
in my preserve on this island," he said in the same slow tone, "I hunt
more dangerous game."

Rainsford expressed his surprise. "Is there big game on this island?"

The general nodded. "The biggest."

"Really?"

"Oh, it isn't here naturally, of course. I have to stock the island."

"What have you imported, general?" Rainsford asked. "Tigers?"

The general smiled. "No," he said. "Hunting tigers ceased to interest me
some years ago. I exhausted their possibilities, you see. No thrill left
in tigers, no real danger. I live for danger, Mr. Rainsford."

The general took from his pocket a gold cigarette case and offered his
guest a long black cigarette with a silver tip; it was perfumed and gave
off a smell like incense.

"We will have some capital hunting, you and I," said the general. "I
shall be most glad to have your society."

"But what game--" began Rainsford.

"I'll tell you," said the general. "You will be amused, I know. I think
I may say, in all modesty, that I have done a rare thing. I have
invented a new sensation. May I pour you another glass of port?"

"Thank you, general."

The general filled both glasses, and said, "God makes some men poets.
Some He makes kings, some beggars. Me He made a hunter. My hand was made
for the trigger, my father said. He was a very rich man with a quarter
of a million acres in the Crimea, and he was an ardent sportsman. When I
was only five years old he gave me a little gun, specially made in
Moscow for me, to shoot sparrows with. When I shot some of his prize
turkeys with it, he did not punish me; he complimented me on my
marksmanship. I killed my first bear in the Caucasus when I was ten. My
whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I went into the army--it was
expected of noblemen's sons--and for a time commanded a division of
Cossack cavalry, but my real interest was always the hunt. I have hunted
every kind of game in every land. It would be impossible for me to tell
you how many animals I have killed."

The general puffed at his cigarette.

"After the debacle in Russia I left the country, for it was imprudent
for an officer of the Czar to stay there. Many noble Russians lost
everything. I, luckily, had invested heavily in American securities, so
I shall never have to open a tearoom in Monte Carlo or drive a taxi in
Paris. Naturally, I continued to hunt--grizzliest in your Rockies,
crocodiles in the Ganges, rhinoceroses in East Africa. It was in Africa
that the Cape buffalo hit me and laid me up for six months. As soon as I
recovered I started for the Amazon to hunt jaguars, for I had heard they
were unusually cunning. They weren't." The Cossack sighed. "They were no
match at all for a hunter with his wits about him, and a high-powered
rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. I was lying in my tent with a
splitting headache one night when a terrible thought pushed its way into
my mind. Hunting was beginning to bore me! And hunting, remember, had
been my life. I have heard that in America businessmen often go to
pieces when they give up the business that has been their life."

"Yes, that's so," said Rainsford.

The general smiled. "I had no wish to go to pieces," he said. "I must do
something. Now, mine is an analytical mind, Mr. Rainsford. Doubtless
that is why I enjoy the problems of the chase."

"No doubt, General Zaroff."

"So," continued the general, "I asked myself why the hunt no longer
fascinated me. You are much younger than I am, Mr. Rainsford, and have
not hunted as much, but you perhaps can guess the answer."

"What was it?"

"Simply this: hunting had ceased to be what you call `a sporting
proposition.' It had become too easy. I always got my quarry. Always.
There is no greater bore than perfection."

The general lit a fresh cigarette.

"No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast; it is a
mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs and his
instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought of this it was
a tragic moment for me, I can tell you."

Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host was saying.

"It came to me as an inspiration what I must do," the general went on.

"And that was?"

The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an obstacle and
surmounted it with success. "I had to invent a new animal to hunt," he said.

"A new animal? You're joking."

"Not at all," said the general. "I never
joke about hunting. I needed a new animal. I found one. So I bought this
island built this house, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect
for my purposes--there are jungles with a maze of traits in them, hills,
swamps--"

"But the animal, General Zaroff?"

"Oh," said the general, "it supplies me with the most exciting hunting
in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an instant. Every
day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with which I
can match my wits."

Rainsford's bewilderment showed in his face.

"I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said,
`What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of
course, `It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able
to reason."'

"But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford.

"My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can."

"But you can't mean--" gasped Rainsford.

"And why not?"

"I can't believe you are serious, General Zaroff. This is a grisly joke."

"Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting."

"Hunting? Great Guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder."

The general laughed with entire good nature. He regarded Rainsford
quizzically. "I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized a young
man as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas about the value of human
life. Surely your experiences in the war--"

"Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder," finished Rainsford stiffly.

Laughter shook the general. "How extraordinarily droll you are!" he
said. "One does not expect nowadays to find a young man of the educated
class, even in America, with such a naive, and, if I may say so,
mid-Victorian point of view. It's like finding a snuffbox in a
limousine. Ah, well, doubtless you had Puritan ancestors. So many
Americans appear to have had. I'll wager you'll forget your notions when
you go hunting with me. You've a genuine new thrill in store for you,
Mr. Rainsford."

"Thank you, I'm a hunter, not a murderer."

"Dear me," said the general, quite unruffled, "again that unpleasant
word. But I think I can show you that your scruples are quite ill founded."

"Yes?"

"Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be,
taken by the strong. The weak of the world were put here to give the
strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my gift? If I wish to
hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth: sailors from tramp
ships--lassars, blacks, Chinese, whites, mongrels--a thoroughbred horse
or hound is worth more than a score of them."

"But they are men," said Rainsford hotly.

"Precisely," said the general. "That is why I use them. It gives me
pleasure. They can reason, after a fashion. So they are dangerous."

"But where do you get them?"

The general's left eyelid fluttered down in a wink. "This island is
called Ship Trap," he answered. "Sometimes an angry god of the high seas
sends them to me. Sometimes, when Providence is not so kind, I help
Providence a bit. Come to the window with me."

Rainsford went to the window and looked out toward the sea.

"Watch! Out there!" exclaimed the general, pointing into the night.
Rainsford's eyes saw only blackness, and then, as the general pressed a
button, far out to sea Rainsford saw the flash of lights.

The general chuckled. "They indicate a channel," he said, "where there's
none; giant rocks with razor edges crouch like a sea monster with
wide-open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily as I crush this nut." He
dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought his heel grinding
down on it. "Oh, yes," he said, casually, as if in answer to a question,
"I have electricity. We try to be civilized here."

"Civilized? And you shoot down men?"

A trace of anger was in the general's black eyes, but it was there for
but a second; and he said, in his most pleasant manner, "Dear me, what a
righteous young man you are! I assure you I do not do the thing you
suggest. That would be barbarous. I treat these visitors with every
consideration. They get plenty of good food and exercise. They get into
splendid physical condition. You shall see for yourself tomorrow."

"What do you mean?"

"We'll visit my training school," smiled the general. "It's in the
cellar. I have about a dozen pupils down there now. They're from the
Spanish bark San Lucar that had the bad luck to go on the rocks out
there. A very inferior lot, I regret to say. Poor specimens and more
accustomed to the deck than to the jungle." He raised his hand, and
Ivan, who served as waiter, brought thick Turkish coffee. Rainsford,
with an effort, held his tongue in check.

"It's a game, you see," pursued the general blandly. "I suggest to one
of them that we go hunting. I give him a supply of food and an excellent
hunting knife. I give him three hours' start. I am to follow, armed only
with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry eludes me
for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him "--the general
smiled--" he loses."

"Suppose he refuses to be hunted?"

"Oh," said the general, "I give him his option, of course. He need not
play that game if he doesn't wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I
turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honor of serving as official
knouter to the Great White Czar, and he has his own ideas of sport.
Invariably, Mr. Rainsford, invariably they choose the hunt."

"And if they win?"

The smile on the general's face widened. "To date I have not lost," he
said. Then he added, hastily: "I don't wish you to think me a braggart,
Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of
problem. Occasionally I strike a tartar. One almost did win. I
eventually had to use the dogs."

"The dogs?"

"This way, please. I'll show you."

The general steered Rainsford to a window. The lights from the windows
sent a flickering illumination that made grotesque patterns on the
courtyard below, and Rainsford could see moving about there a dozen or
so huge black shapes; as they turned toward him, their eyes glittered
greenly.

"A rather good lot, I think," observed the general. "They are let out at
seven every night. If anyone should try to get into my house--or out of
it--something extremely regrettable would occur to him." He hummed a
snatch of song from the /Folies Bergere/.

"And now," said the general, "I want to show you my new collection of
heads. Will you come with me to the library?"

"I hope," said Rainsford, "that you will excuse me tonight, General
Zaroff. I'm really not feeling well."

"Ah, indeed?" the general inquired solicitously. "Well, I suppose that's
only natural, after your long swim. You need a good, restful night's
sleep. Tomorrow you'll feel like a new man, I'll wager. Then we'll hunt,
eh? I've one rather promising prospect--" Rainsford was hurrying from
the room.

"Sorry you can't go with me tonight," called the general. "I expect
rather fair sport--a big, strong, black. He looks resourceful--Well,
good night, Mr. Rainsford; I hope you have a good night's rest."

The bed was good, and the pajamas of the softest silk, and he was tired
in every fiber of his being, but nevertheless Rainsford could not quiet
his brain with the opiate of sleep. He lay, eyes wide open. Once he
thought he heard stealthy steps in the corridor outside his room. He
sought to throw open the door; it would not open. He went to the window
and looked out. His room was high up in one of the towers. The lights of
the chateau were out now, and it was dark and silent; but there was a
fragment of sallow moon, and by its wan light he could see, dimly, the
courtyard. There, weaving in and out in the pattern of shadow, were
black, noiseless forms; the hounds heard him at the window and looked
up, expectantly, with their green eyes. Rainsford went back to the bed
and lay down. By many methods he tried to put himself to sleep. He had
achieved a doze when, just as morning began to come, he heard, far off
in the jungle, the faint report of a pistol.

General Zaroff did not appear until luncheon. He was dressed faultlessly
in the tweeds of a country squire. He was solicitous about the state of
Rainsford's health.

"As for me," sighed the general, "I do not feel so well. I am worried,
Mr. Rainsford. Last night I detected traces of my old complaint."

To Rainsford's questioning glance the general said, "Ennui. Boredom."

Then, taking a second helping of cr�pes Suzette, the general
explained: "The hunting was not good last night. The fellow lost his
head. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all. That's
the trouble with these sailors; they have dull brains to begin with, and
they do not know how to get about in the woods. They do excessively
stupid and obvious things. It's most annoying. Will you have another
glass of Chablis, Mr. Rainsford?"

"General," said Rainsford firmly, "I wish to leave this island at once."

The general raised his thickets of eyebrows; he seemed hurt. "But, my
dear fellow," the general protested, "you've only just come. You've had
no hunting--"

"I wish to go today," said Rainsford. He saw the dead black eyes of the
general on him, studying him. General Zaroff's face suddenly brightened.

He filled Rainsford's glass with venerable Chablis from a dusty bottle.

"Tonight," said the general, "we will hunt--you and I."

Rainsford shook his head. "No, general," he said. "I will not hunt."

The general shrugged his shoulders and delicately ate a hothouse grape.
"As you wish, my friend," he said. "The choice rests entirely with you.
But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport
more diverting than Ivan's?"

He nodded toward the corner to where the giant stood, scowling, his
thick arms crossed on his hogshead of chest.

"You don't mean--" cried Rainsford.

"My dear fellow," said the general, "have I not told you I always mean
what I say about hunting? This is really an inspiration. I drink to a
foeman worthy of my steel - at last." The general raised his glass, but
Rainsford sat staring at him.

"You'll find this game worth playing," the general said
enthusiastically." Your brain against mine. Your woodcraft against mine.
Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess! And the stake is
not without value, eh?"

"And if I win -" began Rainsford huskily.

"I'll cheerfully acknowledge myself defeat if I do not find you by
midnight of the third day," said General Zaroff. "My sloop will place
you on the mainland near a town." The general read what Rainsford was
thinking.

"Oh, you can trust me," said the Cossack. "I will give you my word as a
gentleman and a sportsman. Of course you, in turn, must agree to say
nothing of your visit here."

"I'll agree to nothing of the kind," said Rainsford.

"Oh," said the general, "in that case... But why discuss that now? Three
days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, unless..."

The general sipped his wine.

Then a businesslike air animated him. "Ivan," he said to Rainsford,
"will supply you with hunting clothes, food, a knife. I suggest you wear
moccasins; they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the
big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it Death Swamp.
There's quicksand there. One foolish fellow tried it. The deplorable
part of it was that Lazarus followed him. You can imagine my feelings,
Mr. Rainsford. I loved Lazarus; he was the finest hound in my pack.
Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. I always' take a siesta after
lunch. You'll hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You'll want to start,
no doubt. I shall not follow till dusk. Hunting at night is so much more
exciting than by day, don't you think? Au revoir, Mr. Rainsford, au
revoir." General Zaroff, with a deep, courtly bow, strolled from the room.

From another door came Ivan. Under one arm he carried khaki hunting
clothes, a haversack of food, a leather sheath containing a long-bladed
hunting knife; his right hand rested on a cocked revolver thrust in the
crimson sash about his waist.

Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. "I must
keep my nerve. I must keep my nerve," he said through tight teeth.

He had not been entirely clearheaded when the chateau gates snapped shut
behind him. His whole idea at first was to put distance between himself
and General Zaroff; and, to this end, he had plunged along, spurred on
by the sharp rowers of something very like panic. Now he had got a grip
on himself, had stopped, and was taking stock of himself and the
situation. He saw that straight flight was futile; inevitably it would
bring him face to face with the sea. He was in a picture with a frame of
water, and his operations, clearly, must take place within that frame.

"I'll give him a trail to follow," muttered Rainsford, and he struck off
from the rude path he had been following into the trackless wilderness.
He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again
and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of
the fox. Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the
branches, on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane to
blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. His need for
rest was imperative and he thought, "I have played the fox, now I must
play the cat of the fable." A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread
branches was near by, and, taking care to leave not the slightest mark,
he climbed up into the crotch, and, stretching out on one of the broad
limbs, after a fashion, rested. Rest brought him new confidence and
almost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff
could not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself could
follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps
the general was a devil--

An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep
did not visit Rainsford, although the silence of a dead world was on the
jungle. Toward morning when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky, the cry
of some startled bird focused Rainsford's attention in that direction.
Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming
by the same winding way Rainsford had come. He flattened himself down on
the limb and, through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, he
watched. . . . That which was approaching was a man.

It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in
utmost concentration on the ground before him. He paused, almost beneath
the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground. Rainsford's
impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the
general's right hand held something metallic--a small automatic pistol.

The hunter shook his head several times, as if he were puzzled. Then he
straightened up and took from his case one of his black cigarettes; its
pungent incenselike smoke floated up to Rainsford's nostrils.

Rainsford held his breath. The general's eyes had left the ground and
were traveling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every
muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped
before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over
his brown face. Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air;
then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back
along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his
hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.

The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs. His first thought
made him feel sick and numb. The general could follow a trail through
the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he
must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack
failed to see his quarry.

Rainsford's second thought was even more terrible. It sent a shudder of
cold horror through his whole being. Why had the general smiled? Why had
he turned back?

Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, but
the truth was as evident as the sun that had by now pushed through the
morning mists. The general was playing with him! The general was saving
him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse.
Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror.

"I will not lose my nerve. I will not."

He slid down from the tree, and struck off again into the woods. His
face was set and he forced the machinery of his mind to function. Three
hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped where a huge dead tree
leaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack of
food, Rainsford took his knife from its sheath and began to work with
all his energy.

The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallen
log a hundred feet away. He did not have to wait long. The cat was
coming again to play with the mouse.

Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General
Zaroff. Nothing escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of
grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how faint, in the moss. So
intent was the Cossack on his stalking that he was upon the thing
Rainsford had made before he saw it. His foot touched the protruding
bough that was the trigger. Even as he touched it, the general sensed
his danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he was not
quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the
cut living one, crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on
the shoulder as it fell; but for his alertness, he must have been
smashed beneath it. He staggered, but he did not fall; nor did he drop
his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and
Rainsford, with fear again gripping his heart, heard the general's
mocking laugh ring through the jungle.

"Rainsford," called the general, "if you are within sound of my voice,
as I suppose you are, let me congratulate you. Not many men know how to
make a Malay mancatcher. Luckily for me I, too, have hunted in Malacca.
You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainsford. I am going now to have my
wound dressed; it's only a slight one. But I shall be back. I shall be
back."

When the general, nursing his bruised shoulder, had gone, Rainsford took
up his flight again. It was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight,
that carried him on for some hours. Dusk came, then darkness, and still
he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins; the
vegetation grew ranker, denser; insects bit him savagely.

Then, as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to
wrench it back, but the muck sucked viciously at his foot as if it were
a giant leech. With a violent effort, he tore his feet loose. He knew
where he was now. Death Swamp and its quicksand.

His hands were tight closed as if his nerve were something tangible that
someone in the darkness was trying to tear from his grip. The softness
of the earth had given him an idea. He stepped back from the quicksand a
dozen feet or so and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig.

Rainsford had dug himself in in France when a second's delay meant
death. That had been a placid pastime compared to his digging now. The
pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders, he climbed out and
from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point.
These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points
sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and
branches and with it he covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with
sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a
lightning-charred tree.

He knew his pursuer was coming; he heard the padding sound of feet on
the soft earth, and the night breeze brought him the perfume of the
general's cigarette. It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming
with unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot.
Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could he see
the pit. He lived a year in a minute. Then he felt an impulse to cry
aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches
as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the sharp scream of pain as
the pointed stakes found their mark. He leaped up from his place of
concealment. Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was
standing, with an electric torch in his hand.

"You've done well, Rainsford," the voice of the general called. "Your
Burmese tiger pit has claimed one of my best dogs. Again you score. I
think, Mr. Rainsford, Ill see what you can do against my whole pack. I'm
going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening."

At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound
that made him know that he had new things to learn about fear. It was a
distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it. It was the baying of
a pack of hounds.

Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was
and wait. That was suicide. He could flee. That was postponing the
inevitable. For a moment he stood there, thinking. An idea that held a
wild chance came to him, and, tightening his belt, he headed away from
the swamp.

The baying of the hounds drew nearer, then still nearer, nearer, ever
nearer. On a ridge Rainsford climbed a tree. Down a watercourse, not a
quarter of a mile away, he could see the bush moving. Straining his
eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff; just ahead of him
Rainsford made out another figure whose wide shoulders surged through
the tall jungle weeds; it was the giant Ivan, and he seemed pulled
forward by some unseen force; Rainsford knew that Ivan must be holding
the pack in leash.

They would be on him any minute now. His mind worked frantically. He
thought of a native trick he had learned in Uganda. He slid down the
tree. He caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it he fastened
his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of
wild grapevine he tied back the sapling. Then he ran for his life. The
hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent. Rainsford knew
now how an animal at bay feels.

He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped
abruptly, and Rainsford's heart stopped too. They must have reached the
knife.

He shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back. His pursuers had
stopped. But the hope that was in Rainsford's brain when he climbed
died, for he saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on
his feet. But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the
springing tree, had not wholly failed.

Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry
again.

"Nerve, nerve, nerve!" he panted, as he dashed along. A blue gap showed
between the trees dead ahead. Ever nearer drew the hounds. Rainsford
forced himself on toward that gap. He reached it. It was the shore of
the sea. Across a cove he could see the gloomy gray stone of the
chateau. Twenty feet below him the sea rumbled and hissed. Rainsford
hesitated. He heard the hounds. Then he leaped far out into the sea. . . .

When the general and his pack reached the place by the sea, the Cossack
stopped. For some minutes he stood regarding the blue-green expanse of
water. He shrugged his shoulders. Then be sat down, took a drink of
brandy from a silver flask, lit a cigarette, and hummed a bit from
/Madame Butterfly/.

General Zaroff had an exceedingly good dinner in his great paneled
dining hall that evening. With it he had a bottle of /Pol Roger/ and
half a bottle of /Chambertin/. Two slight annoyances kept him from
perfect enjoyment. One was the thought that it would be difficult to
replace Ivan; the other was that his quarry had escaped him; of course,
the American hadn't played the game--so thought the general as he tasted
his after-dinner liqueur. In his library he read, to soothe himself,
from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went up to his bedroom. He
was deliciously tired, he said to himself, as he locked himself in.
There was a little moonlight, so, before turning on his light, he went
to the window and looked down at the courtyard. He could see the great
hounds, and he called, "Better luck another time," to them. Then he
switched on the light.

A man, who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed, was standing there.

"Rainsford!" screamed the general. "How in God's name did you get here?"

"Swam," said Rainsford. "I found it quicker than walking through the
jungle."

The general sucked in his breath and smiled. "I congratulate you," he
said. "You have won the game."

Rainsford did not smile. "I am still a beast at bay," he said, in a low,
hoarse voice. "Get ready, General Zaroff."

The general made one of his deepest bows. "I see," he said. "Splendid!
One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in
this very excellent bed. On guard, Rainsford." . . .

He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.