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14 The Ransom

of Red Chief

Warm Up

● Do you trust strangers?
● How do you deal with strangers?

● Do you know what is 'stranger danger'?

Reading skills

It looked like a good thing. But wait till I tell you. We were down south, in Alabama – Bill and
I when this kidnapping idea struck us. There was a town
down there, as flat as a pancake, called Summit.

Bill and I had about $600.

We needed just two thousand dollars
more for an illegal land deal in
Illinois. We chose for our victim,

the only child of an influential
citizen named Ebenezer

Dorset. He was a boy of
ten, with red hair. Bill and I
thought that Ebenezer would

pay a ransom of $2,000 to
get his boy back. But wait till
I tell you.

About two miles from

Summit was a little
mountain, covered with
cedar trees. There was an

opening on the back of the mountain. We stored our supplies in that cave.
One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset’s house. The kid was in the

street, throwing rocks at a kitten on the opposite fence.

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