Before You Begin

Before you begin.

David R. Solomon's "Fear" turns a camp-fire argument into a test of nerve. In a Southern lumber-company survey camp, a lawyer who believes he knows the limit of his courage is forced to discover whether fear can be overruled by love.

This LitLab miniature begins at the story's heading in the March 1923 issue of Weird Tales and stops before Hamilton Craigie's "The Chain." Its plates follow the morning camp, Coulter's remembered snakebite, Ruth's danger and the final correction that changes what everyone thought they saw.

The edition keeps the danger restrained. The snake remains naturalistic, the wound treatment is not shown graphically, and the final terror rests on misidentification, memory and the body moving before thought.