Editor’s Note: Four men in their thirties, comfortable but bored with their lives, give in to a sudden yen for adventure. Soon the wild mountain valley to the north will be under water, drowned by a new dam. They decide to see the wilderness before it disappears, and embark blithely on a canoe trip that carries them into terror and violence. This episode of the adventure is drawn from Deliverance, the first novel by the prizewinning American poet James Dickey. The full novel will be published next month by Houghton Mifflin. It is the April Literary Guild selection and will be made into a movie by Warner Brothers.