The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-05-17

!
 Rushed Wildly Down the Path.
 could not move swiftly over the rough,
 broken ground, but as looked round me in despair I saw a well marked, hard beaten path which ran across in front of me. We had seen several of l the sort, the runs of various wild beasts, during our expeditions Along
 this could perhaps hold my own, for I was a fast runner and in excellent condition FIinging away my useless
 gun, I set myself to do such half
 mile as have never done before or since-ss. My limbs ached. my chest
 heaved, I felt that my throat would
 burst for want of air. and yet with
 that horror behind me ran and ran
 and ran. At last I paused, hardly able
 to move. For a moment thought that
 I had thrown him off The path lay
 still behind me. And then suddenly, with a crashing and rending, thud-
 ding of giant feet and panting of monster lungs, the beast was upon me
 once more. He was at my very heels. was lost.
 Mailman that was to finger so long
 before I fled! Up to then he had hunt
 ed by scent and his movement was l slow. But he had actually seen me as I started to run. From then on- ward he had hunted by sight, for the
 path showed him where I had gone.
 Now, as he came round the curve, he was springiAg in great bounds The
 moonlight shone upon his huge project ing eyes, the row of enormous teeth in his open mouth and the gleaming fringe of claws upon his short, power full forearns. With scream of ter -3<> the path. Behind me the thick, gasp ing breathing of the creature sounded louder and louder. His heavy footfan was beside me. Every instant ex- pected to feel his grip upon my back. And then suddenly there came crash i-I was falling through space, and everything beyond was darkness and
 rest.
 As I emerged from my unconscious | ness-which could not, I think have lasted more than few minutes-I was ! aware of a most dreadful and pene- l traHng smell Putting out my hand in
 the darkness, I came upon something 1 which felt like a huge lump of meat,
 while my other hand closed upon a large bone. Up, above me there was
 a circle of starlit sky, which showed I me that I was lying at the bottom of
 deep pit. Slowly staggered to my
 feet and felt myself all over I was stiff and sore from head to foot, but
 there was no limb which would not
 move, no joint which would not bend
 It was, as I have said, a pit with
 eharply sloping walls and level bot
 tom about twenty feet across. This
 bottom was filtered with great gob- l bets of flesh, most of which was in the last state of putridity The atmos- l phere was poisonous and horrible After tripping and stumbling over these Jumps of decay came suddenly 1 against something hard and I found that an upright post was firmly. fixed l in the center of the hollow It was
 so high that could not reach the top 1 of it with my hand, and it appeared to
 be covered with grease.
 l Suddenly remembered that had
 tin box of wax vestas in my pocket
 Striking one of them, I was able at last to form some opinion of this place
 into which I had fallen. There could
 be no question as to it's nature It was
 a trap-made by the hand of man. The
 post in the center, some nine feet long,
 was sharpened at the upper end, and l was black with the stale blood of the creatures who had been impaled 1 upon it. The remains scattered about were l fragments of the victims, which had | been cut away in order to clear the
 stake for the next who might blunder ] in. remembered that Challenger had
 declared that man could not exist upon i the plateau, since with his feeble weapons he could lot hold his own