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.