The Most Dangerous Game 25

Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, butthe truth was as evident as the sun that had by now pushed through themorning mists. The general was playing with him! The general was savinghim 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. Hisface was set and he forced the machinery of his mind to function. Threehundred yards from his hiding place he stopped where a huge dead treeleaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack offood, Rainsford took his knife from its sheath and began to work withall his energy. The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallenlog a hundred feet away. He did not have to wait long. The cat wascoming again to play with the mouse.