and he crashed to the ground. He was up in an instant, cursing, frantic with rage, and sprang toward the motionless cat. The animal waited until he was almost upon it, then quickly dodged aside and ran in another direction. He was out of breath now, but it never occurred to him to abandon the chase. He rushed after the hated black beast which ran ever ahead of him in the swirling mist, now scarcely crawling, now darting out of reach with the suddenness of a whiplash, now pausing and turning its flat head to make sure he was following behind. He leaped forward like a madman, striking out savagely with the cane, sliding to his hands and knees, a wild frenzied figure in the moonlight. He was possessed by the one idea; he had lost all sense of proportion, of direction; he did not even know into which part of the meadow he had ventured. Suddenly the cat made a long leap. It landed heavily and appeared to go limp. It looked back but did not move as he lunged forward.Without warning the ground vanished beneath his feet and he plunged downward like a stone. Even as he fell he understood the trap to which he had been led. With demoniac cunning, the cat had caused him to run directly over the shaft of a deep abandoned well which was located in the rear unused portion of the meadow.

He screamed once before the black water closed over his head, sending him straight down a pool of freezing darkness. He kicked and clawed and at last came to the surface, but already the icy water was working its paralysis in him.

He stared up and screamed again, but the steep walls of the well smothered his cry; it was little more than a weak moan above the surface of the ground.

As his wildly clutching fingers scraped in vain against the smooth moss-slick sides of the well, he looked up with a last desperate hope and there silhouetted above him, like a fiend from hell, was the remorseless shape of the cat, gazing steadily downward with a glow of triumph in its yellow eyes.

He started to scream again, but his fingers lost their frail grip on the mossy stones and he sank out of sight beneath the surface of green scum.

THE DUMP

Pulling aside the dingy kitchen curtain, she looked out. "It's starting again," she said tensely.

To the north, a scant mile from the house, a great greasy billow of black smoke rolled skyward. Squealing sea gulls flapped over huge mounds of smoldering trash. Although she couldn't see them from the window, the woman knew 

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