Hunter and the Trap by Howard Fast Page B

that there was virtue in what you killed for, Mr. Felton?”
    â€œI don’t like to put it that way because I have never regarded myself as a killer.”
    â€œBut the plain and naked fact of the matter, Mr. Felton, is that you are a killer. You have killed human beings, haven’t you?”
    â€œI have,” I admitted weakly.
    â€œI am not trying to pin you down to something nasty, Mr. Felton. I am not trying to derogate you, please believe me. It is only that no man takes any action without some sort of justification. He would go out of his mind if he did, wouldn’t he? You ask me to prefer you to Mr. Archway, but I find that very hard to do. Really, I know this hurts you and I know I am not being polite, but from my point of view you and Archway inhabit the same world.”
    â€œAnd you don’t inhabit that world, Miss Oland?” I wanted to know.
    â€œNo, not really. I am a Quaker, Mr. Felton. I think that my culture, the culture of my family, the culture of my people, has been different for many generations. We live among you but not with you. Your world is not our world. It really isn’t, Mr. Felton, and you might do well to think about that. You seem very seriously interested in what has happened to this poor child. Maybe thinking about what I have just said would give you some clue as to what happens when a human child must live in a baboon’s world.”
    â€œAnd at the same time,” I said to her, “you have your little triumph and the great, great satisfaction of righteousness.”
    She did not argue that point. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose I am righteous, Mr. Felton. I wish I knew how to be otherwise, and perhaps in time I will learn. For the moment I am young enough to feel righteous and disgusted as well. You have no idea how frequently I am disgusted, Mr. Felton.”
    So, you see, I can fail her for politeness and score her very low as regards hospitality, she having been in Pretoria at least six months longer than I. At the same time, even though she is a woman I will not remember fondly, I have to admire her, and, in the last analysis, I have to admit that she was speaking the truth.
    All of which leads me to ask some very pertinent questions, sister mine. The man raised by a wolf is no longer a man, and the man raised by the baboons is no longer a man, and this fate is inevitable, isn’t it? No matter what the man is, you put him with the apes and he becomes an ape and never very much more than that. My head has been swimming with all sorts of notions, some of them not at all pleasant. My dear sister, what the hell are you and your husband up to? Isn’t it time you broke down and told old Harry, or do you want me to pop off to Tibet and hold converse with the lamas? I am ready for anything; I will be surprised by nothing, and I am prepared to go any where at all to please you. But, preferably, hand me something that adds up to a positive sum and then put a few words of explanation with it.
    Your nasty killer brother,
Harry.       

Chapter Nine

    BY AIRMAIL

    Washington, D.C.
November 27, 1945
    M R . H ARRY F ELTON
P RETORIA , U NION OF S OUTH A FRICA
    Dear Harry:
    You are a good and sweet brother, and quite sharp, too. You are also a dear. You are patient and understanding, and you have trotted around dutifully in a maze without trying to batter your way out.
    Now it comes down to this, Harry: Mark and I want you to do a job for us which will enable you to go here and there across the face of the earth, and be paid for it, too. In order to convince you, and to have your full cooperation and your very considerable creative abilities as well, we must spill out the dark secrets of our work—which we have decided to do, considering that you are an upright and trustworthy character. But the mail, it would seem, is less trustworthy; and since we are working with the Army, which has a constitutional dedication to