Tarzan of the Apes was disgusted. He had had the Ger-man spy, Bertha Kircher, in his power and had left herunscathed. It is true that he had slain Hauptmann FritzSchneider, that Underlieutenant von Goss had died at hishands, and that he had otherwise wreaked vengeance upon themen of the German company who had murdered, pillaged, andraped at Tarzan's bungalow in the Waziri country. There wasstill another officer to be accounted for, but him he couldnot find. It was Lieutenant Obergatz he still sought, thoughvainly, for at last he learned that the man had been sent uponsome special mission, whether in Africa or back to EuropeTarzan's informant either did not know or would not divulge.

But the fact that he had permitted sentiment to stay hishand when he might so easily have put Bertha Kircher out ofthe way in the hotel at Wilhelmstal that night rankled in theape-man's bosom. He was shamed by his weakness, and whenhe had handed the paper she had given him to the British chiefof staff, even though the information it contained permittedthe British to frustrate a German flank attack, he was still muchdissatisfied with himself. And possibly the root of thisdissatis-faction lay in the fact that he realized that were he again tohave the same opportunity he would still find it as impossibleto slay a woman as it had been in Wilhelmstal that night.

Tarzan blamed this weakness, as he considered it, upon hisassociation with the effeminating influences of civilization, forin the bottom of his savage heart he held in contempt bothcivilization and its representatives -- the men and women of thecivilized countries of the world. Always was he comparingtheir weaknesses, their vices, their hypocrisies, and theirlittlevanities with the open, primitive ways of his ferocious junglemates, and all the while there battled in that same big heartwith these forces another mighty force -- Tarzan's love andloyalty for his friends of the civilized world.

The ape-man, reared as he had been by savage beasts amidsavage beasts, was slow to make friends. Acquaintances henumbered by the hundreds; but of friends he had few. Thesefew he would have died for as, doubtless, they would havedied for him; but there were none of these fighting with theBritish forces in East Africa, and so, sickened and disgustedby the sight of man waging his cruel and inhuman warfare,Tarzan determined to heed the insistent call of the remotejungle of his youth, for the Germans were now on the run andthe war in East Africa was so nearly over that he realized thathis further services would be of negligible value.

Never regularly sworn into the service of the King, he wasunder no obligation to remain now that the moral obligationhad been removed, and so it was that he disappeared fromthe British camp as mysteriously as he had appeared a fewmonths before.

More than once had Tarzan reverted to the primitive only toreturn again to civilization through love for his mate; but nowthat she was gone he felt that this time he had definitely de-parted forever from the haunts of man, and that he should liveand die a beast among beasts even as he had been from infancyto maturity.

Between him and destination lay a trackless wildernessof untouched primeval savagery where, doubtless in manyspots, his would be the first human foot to touch the virginturf. Nor did this prospect dismay the Tarmangani -- ratherwas it an urge and an inducement, for rich in his veins flowedthat noble strain of blood that has made most of the earth'ssurface habitable for man.

The question of food and water that would have risenparamount in the mind of an ordinary man contemplating suchan excursion gave Tarzan little concern. The wilderness washis natural habitat and woodcraft as inherent to him as breath-ing. Like other jungle animals he could scent water from agreat distance and, where you or I might die of thirst, the ape-man would unerringly select the exact spot at which to dig andfind water.

For several days Tarzan traversed a country rich in gameand watercourses. He moved slowly, hunting and fishing, oragain fraternizing or quarreling with the other savage denizensof the jungle. Now it was little Manu, the monkey, whochattered and scolded at the mighty Tarmangani and in thenext breath warned him that Histah, the snake, lay coiled inthe long grass just ahead. Of Manu Tarzan inquired concern-ing the great apes -- the Mangani -- and was told that fewinhabited this part of the jungle, and that even these werehunting farther to the north this season of the year.

"But there is Bolgani," said Manu. "Would you like to seeBolgani?"

Manu's tone was sneering, and Tarzan knew that it was be-cause little Manu thought all creatures feared mighty Bolgani,the gorilla. Tarzan arched his great chest and struck it with aclinched fist. "I am Tarzan," he cried. "While Tarzan wasyet a balu he slew a Bolgani. Tarzan seeks the Mangani, whoare his brothers, but Bolgani he does not seek, so let Bolganikeep from the path of Tarzan."

Little Manu, the monkey, was much impressed, for the wayof the jungle is to boast and to believe. It was then that hecondescended to tell Tarzan more of the Mangani.

"They go there and there and there," he said, making a widesweep with a brown hand first toward the north, then west, andthen south again. "For there," and he pointed due west, "ismuch hunting; but between lies a great place where there is nofood and no water, so they must go that way," and again heswung his hand through the half-circle that explained toTarzan the great detour the apes made to come to their hunt-ing ground to the west.

That was all right for the Mangani, who are lazy and do notcare to move rapidly; but for Tarzan the straight road wouldbe the best. He would cross the dry country and come to thegood hunting in a third of the time that it would take to go farto the north and circle back again. And so it was that he con-tinued on toward the west, and crossing a range of low moun-tains came in sight of a broad plateau, rock strewn and deso-late. Far in the distance he saw another range of mountainsbeyond which he felt must lie the hunting ground of theMangani. There he would join them and remain for a whilebefore continuing on toward the coast and the little cabinthat his father had built beside the land-locked harbor at thejungle's edge.

Tarzan was full of plans. He would rebuild and enlargethe cabin of his birth, constructing storage houses where hewould make the apes lay away food when it was plenty againstthe times that were lean -- a thing no ape ever had dreamed ofdoing. And the tribe would remain always in the locality and hewould be king again as he had in the past. He would try toteach them some of the better things that he had learned fromman, yet knowing the ape-mind as only Tarzan could, hefeared that his labors would be for naught.

The ape-man found the country he was crossing rough inthe extreme, the roughest he ever had encountered. Theplateau was cut by frequent canyons the passage of whichoften entailed hours of wearing effort. The vegetation wassparse and of a faded brown color that lent to the wholelandscape a most depressing aspect. Great rocks were strewnin every direction as far as the eye could see, lying partiallyembedded in an impalpable dust that rose in clouds about himat every step. The sun beat down mercilessly out of a cloud-less sky.

For a day Tarzan toiled across this now hateful land andat the going down of the sun the distant mountains to the westseemed no nearer than at morn. Never a sign of living thinghad the ape-man seen, other than Ska, that bird of ill omen,that had followed him tirelessly since he had entered thisparched waste.

No littlest beetle that he might eat had given evidence thatlife of any sort existed here, and it was a hungry and thirstyTarzan who lay down to rest in the evening. He decided nowto push on during the cool of the night, for he realized thateven mighty Tarzan had his limitations and that where therewas no food one could not eat and where there was no waterthe greatest woodcraft in the world could find none. It was atotally new experience to Tarzan to find so barren and terriblea country in his beloved Africa. Even the Sahara had itsoases; but this frightful world gave no indication of containinga square foot of hospitable ground.

However, he had no misgivings but that he would fare forthinto the wonder country of which little Manu had told him,though it was certain that he would do it with a dry skin andan empty belly. And so he fought on until daylight, when heagain felt the need of rest. He was at the edge of another ofthose terrible canyons, the eighth he had crossed, whose pre-cipitous sides would have taxed to the uttermost the strengthof an untired man well fortified by food and water, and for thefirst time, as he looked down into the abyss and then at theopposite side that he must scale, misgivings began to assailhis mind.

He did not fear death -- with the memory of his murderedmate still fresh in his mind he almost courted it, yet strongwithin him was that primal instinct of self-preservation -- thebattling force of life that would keep him an active contenderagainst the Great Reaper until, fighting to the very last, heshould be overcome by a superior power.

A shadow swung slowly across the ground beside him, andlooking up, the ape-man saw Ska, the vulture, wheeling a widecircle above him. The grim and persistent harbinger of evilaroused the man to renewed determination. He arose andapproached the edge of the canyon, and then, wheeling, withhis face turned upward toward the circling bird of prey, hebellowed forth the challenge of the bull ape.

"I am Tarzan," he shouted, "Lord of the Jungle. Tarzan ofthe Apes is not for Ska, eater of carrion. Go back to the lairof Dango and feed off the leavings of the hyenas, for Tarzanwill leave no bones for Ska to pick in this empty wilderness ofdeath."

But before he reached the bottom of the canyon he againwas forced to the realization that his great strength waswaning, and when he dropped exhausted at the foot of thecliff and saw before him the opposite wall that must be scaled,he bared his fighting fangs and growled. For an hour he layresting in the cool shade at the foot of the cliff. All abouthim reigned utter silence -- the silence of the tomb. No flutter-ing birds, no humming insects, no scurrying reptiles relievedthe deathlike stillness. This indeed was the valley of death.He felt the depressing influence of the horrible place settingdown upon him; but he staggered to his feet, shaking himselflike a great lion, for was he not still Tarzan, mighty Tarzanof the Apes? Yes, and Tarzan the mighty he would be untilthe last throb of that savage heart!

As he crossed the floor of the canyon he saw somethinglying close to the base of the side wall he was approaching --something that stood out in startling contrast to all the sur-roundings and yet seemed so much a part and parcel of thesomber scene as to suggest an actor amid the settings of awell-appointed stage, and, as though to carry out the allegory,the pitiless rays of flaming Kudu topped the eastern cliff,picking out the thing lying at the foot of the western wall likea giant spotlight.

And as Tarzan came nearer he saw the bleached skull andbones of a human being about which were remnants ofclothing and articles of equipment that, as he examined them,filled the ape-man with curiosity to such an extent that for atime he forgot his own predicament in contemplation of theremarkable story suggested by these mute evidences of atragedy of a time long past.

The bones were in a fair state of preservation and indicatedby their intactness that the flesh had probably been pickedfrom them by vultures as none was broken; but the pieces ofequipment bore out the suggestion of their great age. In thisprotected spot where there were no frosts and evidently butlittle rainfall, the bones might have lain for ages withoutdisintegrating, for there were here no other forces to scatteror disturb them.

Near the skeleton lay a helmet of hammered brass and acorroded breastplate of steel while at one side was a long,straight sword in its scabbard and an ancient harquebus. Thebones were those of a large man -- a man of wondrous strengthand vitality Tarzan knew he must have been to have pene-trated thus far through the dangers of Africa with such aponderous yet at the same time futile armament.

The ape-man felt a sense of deep admiration for this name-less adventurer of a bygone day. What a brute of a man hemust have been and what a glorious tale of battle and kaleido-scopic vicissitudes of fortune must once have been lockedwithin that whitened skull! Tarzan stooped to examine theshreds of clothing that still lay about the bones. Every particleof leather had disappeared, doubtless eaten by Ska. No bootsremained, if the man had worn boots, but there were severalbuckles scattered about suggesting that a great part of histrappings had been of leather, while just beneath the bones ofone hand lay a metal cylinder about eight inches long and twoinches in diameter. As Tarzan picked it up he saw that ithad been heavily lacquered and had withstood the slightravages of time so well as to be in as perfect a state ofperserva-tion today as it had been when its owner dropped into his last,long sleep perhaps centuries ago.

As he examined it he discovered that one end was closedwith a friction cover which a little twisting force soon loosenedand removed, revealing within a roll of parchment which theape-man removed and opened, disclosing a number of age-yellowed sheets closely written upon in a fine hand in a lan-guage which he guessed to be Spanish but which he could notdecipher. Upon the last sheet was a roughly drawn map withnumerous reference points marked upon it, all unintelligible toTarzan, who, after a brief examination of the papers, returnedthem to their metal case, replaced the top and was about totoss the little cylinder to the ground beside the mute remainsof its former possessor when some whim of curiosity unsatisfiedprompted him to slip it into the quiver with his arrows, thoughas he did so it was with the grim thought that possibly cen-turies hence it might again come to the sight of man besidehis own bleached bones.

And then, with a parting glance at the ancient skeleton, heturned to the task of ascending the western wall of the canyon.Slowly and with many rests he dragged his weakening bodyupwards. Again and again he slipped back from sheer ex-haustion and would have fallen to the floor of the canyon butfor merest chance. How long it took him to scale thatfrightful wall he could not have told, and when at last hedragged himself over the top it was to lie weak and gasping,too spent to rise or even to move a few inches farther from theperilous edge of the chasm.

At last he arose, very slowly and with evident effort gaininghis knees first and then staggering to his feet, yet his indomi-table will was evidenced by a sudden straightening of hisshoulders and a determined shake of his head as he lurchedforward on unsteady legs to take up his valiant fight for sur-vival. Ahead he scanned the rough landscape for sign of an-other canyon which he knew would spell inevitable doom.The western hills rose closer now though weirdly unreal asthey seemed to dance in the sunlight as though mocking himwith their nearness at the moment that exhaustion was aboutto render them forever unattainable.

Beyond them he knew must be the fertile hunting groundsof which Manu had told. Even if no canyon intervened, hischances of surmounting even low hills seemed remote shouldhe have the fortune to reach their base; but with anothercanyon hope was dead. Above them Ska still circled, and itseemed to the ape-man that the ill-omened bird hovered everlower and lower as though reading in that failing gait the near-ing of the end, and through cracked lips Tarzan growled outhis defiance.

Mile after mile Tarzan of the Apes put slowly behind him,borne up by sheer force of will where a lesser man would havelain down to die and rest forever tired muscles whose everymove was an agony of effort; but at last his progress becamepractically mechanical -- he staggered on with a dazed mindthat reacted numbly to a single urge -- on, on, on! The hillswere now but a dim, ill-defined blur ahead. Sometimes heforgot that they were hills, and again he wondered vaguelywhy he must go on forever through all this torture endeavoringto overtake them -- the fleeing, elusive hills. Presently hebegan to hate them and there formed within his half-deliriousbrain the hallucination that the hills were German hills, thatthey had slain someone dear to him, whom he could neverquite recall, and that he was pursuing to slay them.

This idea, growing, appeared to give him strength -- a newand revivifying purpose -- so that for a time he no longerstaggered; but went forward steadily with head erect. Oncehe stumbled and fell, and when he tried to rise he found thathe could not -- that his strength was so far gone that he couldonly crawl forward on his hands and knees for a few yards andthen sink down again to rest.

It was during one of these frequent periods of utter exhaus-tion that he heard the flap of dismal wings close above him.With his remaining strength he turned himself over on his backto see Ska wheel quickly upward. With the sight Tarzan'smind cleared for a while.

"Is the end so near as that?" he thought. "Does Ska knowthat I am so near gone that he dares come down and perchupon my carcass?" And even then a grim smile touched thoseswollen lips as into the savage mind came a sudden thought --the cunning of the wild beast at bay. Closing his eyes hethrew a forearm across them to protect them from Ska'spowerful beak and then he lay very still and waited.

It was restful lying there, for the sun was now obscured byclouds and Tarzan was very tired. He feared that he mightsleep and something told him that if he did he would neverawaken, and so he concentrated all his remaining powers uponthe one thought of remaining awake. Not a muscle moved --to Ska, circling above, it became evident that the end hadcome -- that at last he should be rewarded for his long vigil

Circling slowly he dropped closer and closer to the dyingman. Why did not Tarzan move? Had he indeed been over-come by the sleep of exhaustion, or was Ska right -- had deathat last claimed that mighty body? Was that great, savageheart stilled forever? It is unthinkable.

Ska, filled with suspicions, circled warily. Twice he almostalighted upon the great, naked breast only to wheel suddenlyaway; but the third time his talons touched the brown skin.It was as though the contact closed an electric circuit thatinstantaneously vitalized the quiet clod that had lain motion-less so long. A brown hand swept downward from the brownforehead and before Ska could raise a wing in flight he was inthe clutches of his intended victim.

Ska fought, but he was no match for even a dying Tarzan,and a moment later the ape-man's teeth closed upon thecarrion-eater. The flesh was coarse and tough and gave offan unpleasant odor and a worse taste; but it was food and theblood was drink and Tarzan only an ape at heart and a dyingape into the bargain -- dying of starvation and thirst.

Even mentally weakened as he was the ape-man was stillmaster of his appetite and so he ate but sparingly, saving therest, and then, feeling that he now could do so safely, he turnedupon his side and slept.

Rain, beating heavily upon his body, awakened him andsitting up he cupped his hands and caught the precious dropswhich he transferred to his parched throat. Only a little hegot at a time; but that was best. The few mouthfuls of Skathat he had eaten, together with the blood and rain water andthe sleep had refreshed him greatly and put new strength intohis tired muscles.

Now he could see the hills again and they were close and,though there was no sun, the world looked bright and cheerful,for Tarzan knew that he was saved. The bird that would havedevoured him, and the providential rain, had saved him at thevery moment that death seemed inevitable.

Again partaking of a few mouthfuls of the unsavory flesh ofSka, the vulture, the ape-man arose with something of his oldforce and set out with steady gait toward the hills of promiserising alluringly ahead. Darkness fell before he reached them;but he kept on until he felt the steeply rising ground thatproclaimed his arrival at the base of the hills proper, and thenhe lay down and waited until morning should reveal the easiestpassage to the land beyond. The rain had ceased, but the skystill was overcast so that even his keen eyes could not pene-trate the darkness farther than a few feet. And there he slept,after eating again of what remained of Ska, until the morningsun awakened him with a new sense of strength and well-being.

And so at last he came through the hills out of the valley ofdeath into a land of parklike beauty, rich in game. Below himlay a deep valley through the center of which dense junglevegetation marked the course of a river beyond which aprimeval forest extended for miles to terminate at last at thefoot of lofty, snow-capped mountains. It was a land thatTarzan never had looked upon before, nor was it likely thatthe foot of another white man ever had touched it unless,possibly, in some long-gone day the adventurer whose skeletonhe had found bleaching in the canyon had traversed it.