Tarzan of the Apes, returning from a successful hunt, withthe body of Bara, the deer, across one sleek, brown shoul-der, paused in the branches of a great tree at the edge ofa clearing and gazed ruefully at two figures walking from theriver to the boma-encircled hut a short distance away.

The ape-man shook his tousled head and sighed. His eyeswandered toward the west and his thoughts to the far-awaycabin by the land-locked harbor of the great water that washedthe beach of his boyhood home -- to the cabin of his long-deadfather to which the memories and treasures of a happy child-hood lured him. Since the loss of his mate, a great longing hadpossessed him to return to the haunts of his youth -- to theuntracked jungle wilderness where he had lived the life heloved best long before man had invaded the precincts of hiswild stamping grounds. There he hoped in a renewal of theold life under the old conditions to win surcease from sorrowand perhaps some measure of forgetfulness.

But the little cabin and the land-locked harbor were manylong, weary marches away, and he was handicapped by theduty which he felt he owed to the two figures walking in theclearing before him. One was a young man in a worn andragged uniform of the British Royal Air Forces, the other, ayoung woman in the even more disreputable remnants of whatonce had been trim riding togs.

A freak of fate had thrown these three radically differenttypes together. One was a savage, almost naked beast-man,one an English army officer, and the woman, she whom theape-man knew and hated as a German spy.

How he was to get rid of them Tarzan could not imagineunless he accompanied them upon the weary march back tothe east coast, a march that would necessitate his once moreretracing the long, weary way he already had covered towardshis goal, yet what else could be done? These two had neitherthe strength, endurance, nor jungle-craft to accompany himthrough the unknown country to the west, nor did he wishthem with him. The man he might have tolerated, but he couldnot even consider the presence of the girl in the far-off cabin,which had in a way become sacred to him through its mem-ories, without a growl or anger rising to his lips. There re-mained, then, but the one way, since he could not desert them.He must move by slow and irksome marches back to the eastcoast, or at least to the first white settlement in thatdirection.

He had, it is true, contemplated leaving the girl to her fatebut that was before she had been instrumental in saving himfrom torture and death at the hands of the black Wamabos.He chafed under the obligation she had put upon him, but noless did he acknowledge it and as he watched the two, therueful expression upon his face was lightened by a smile ashe thought of the helplessness of them. What a puny thing,indeed, was man! How ill equipped to combat the savage forcesof nature and of nature's jungle. Why, even the tiny balu ofthe tribe of Go-lat, the great ape, was better fitted to survivethan these, for a balu could at least escape the numerous crea-tures that menaced its existence, while with the possible excep-tion of Kota, the tortoise, none moved so slowly as did helplessand feeble man.

Without him these two doubtless would starve in the midstof plenty, should they by some miracle escape the other forcesof destruction which constantly threatened them. That morningTarzan had brought them fruit, nuts, and plantain, and nowhe was bringing them the flesh of his kill, while the best thatthey might do was to fetch water from the river. Even now, asthey walked across the clearing toward the boma, they were inutter ignorance of the presence of Tarzan near them. They didnot know that his sharp eyes were watching them, nor thatother eyes less friendly were glaring at them from a clump ofbushes close beside the boma entrance. They did not knowthese things, but Tarzan did. No more than they could he seethe creature crouching in the concealment of the foliage, yethe knew that it was there and what it was and what its inten-tions, precisely as well as though it had been lying in the open.

A slight movement of the leaves at the top of a single stemhad apprised him of the presence of a creature there, for themovement was not that imparted by the wind. It came frompressure at the bottom of the stem which communicates a dif-ferent movement to the leaves than does the wind passingamong them, as anyone who has lived his lifetime in the jun-gle well knows, and the same wind that passed through thefoliage of the bush brought to the ape-man's sensitive nos-trils indisputable evidence of the fact that Sheeta, the panther,waited there for the two returning from the river.

They had covered half the distance to the boma entrancewhen Tarzan called to them to stop. They looked in surprisein the direction from which his voice had come to see himdrop lightly to the ground and advance toward them.

"Come slowly toward me," he called to them. "Do not runfor if you run Sheeta will charge."

They did as he bid, their faces filled with questioning won-derment.

"What do you mean?" asked the young Englishman. "Whois Sheeta?" but for answer the ape-man suddenly hurledthe carcass of Bara, the deer, to the ground and leaped quicklytoward them, his eyes upon something in their rear; and thenit was that the two turned and learned the identity of Sheeta,for behind them was a devil-faced cat charging rapidly towardthem.

Sheeta with rising anger and suspicion had seen the ape-manleap from the tree and approach the quarry. His life's expe-riences backed by instinct told him that the Tarmangani wasabout to rob him of his prey and as Sheeta was hungry, he hadno intention of being thus easily deprived of the flesh he al-ready considered his own.

The girl stifled an involuntary scream as she saw the prox-imity of the fanged fury bearing down upon them. She shrankclose to the man and clung to him and all unarmed and de-fenseless as he was, the Englishman pushed her behind himand shielding her with his body, stood squarely in the face ofthe panther's charge. Tarzan noted the act, and though accus-tomed as he was to acts of courage, he experienced a thrillfrom the hopeless and futile bravery of the man.

The charging panther moved rapidly, and the distance whichseparated the bush in which he had concealed himself from theobjects of his desire was not great. In the time that one mightunderstandingly read a dozen words the strong-limbed catcould have covered the entire distance and made his kill, yetif Sheeta was quick, quick too was Tarzan. The English lieu-tenant saw the ape-man flash by him like the wind. He sawthe great cat veer in his charge as though to elude the nakedsavage rushing to meet him, as it was evidently Sheeta's inten-tion to make good his kill before attempting to protect it fromTarzan.

Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick saw these things and then withincreasing wonder he saw the ape-man swerve, too, and leapfor the spotted cat as a football player leaps for a runner. Hesaw the strong, brown arms encircling the body of the car-nivore, the left arm in front of the beast's left shoulder andthe right arm behind his right foreleg, and with the impact thetwo together rolling over and over upon the turf. He heardthe snarls and growls of bestial combat, and it was with a feel-ing of no little horror that he realized that the sounds com-ing from the human throat of the battling man could scarcebe distinguished from those of the panther.

The first momentary shock of terror over, the girl releasedher grasp upon the Englishman's arm. "Cannot we do some-thing?" she asked. "Cannot we help him before the beastkills him?"

The Englishman looked upon the ground for some missilewith which to attack the panther and then the girl uttered anexclamation and started at a run toward the hut. "Wait there,"she called over her shoulder. "I will fetch the spear that heleftme."

Smith-Oldwick saw the raking talons of the panther search-ing for the flesh of the man and the man on his part strainingevery muscle and using every artifice to keep his body out ofrange of them. The muscles of his arms knotted under thebrown hide. The veins stood out upon his neck and foreheadas with ever-increasing power he strove to crush the life fromthe great cat. The ape-man's teeth were fastened in the backof Sheeta's neck and now he succeeded in encircling the beast'storso with his legs which he crossed and locked beneath thecat's belly. Leaping and snarling, Sheeta sought to dislodgethe ape-man's hold upon him. He hurled himself upon theground and rolled over and over. He reared upon his hindlegs and threw himself backwards but always the savagecreature upon his back clung tenaciously to him, and alwaysthe mighty brown arms crushed tighter and tighter about hischest.

And then the girl, panting from her quick run, returned withthe short spear Tarzan had left her as her sole weapon of pro-tection. She did not wait to hand it to the Englishman whoran forward to receive it, but brushed past him and leapedinto close quarters beside the growling, tumbling mass of yel-low fur and smooth brown hide. Several times she attemptedto press the point home into the cat's body, but on both occa-sions the fear of endangering the ape-man caused her to de-sist, but at last the two lay motionless for a moment as thecarnivore sought a moment's rest from the strenuous exertionsof battle, and then it was that Bertha Kircher pressed the pointof the spear to the tawny side and drove it deep into the savageheart.

Tarzan rose from the dead body of Sheeta and shook him-self after the manner of beasts that are entirely clothed withhair. Like many other of his traits and mannerisms this wasthe result of environment rather than heredity or reversion, andeven though he was outwardly a man, the Englishman andthe girl were both impressed with the naturalness of the act.It was as though Numa, emerging from a fight, had shakenhimself to straighten his rumpled mane and coat, and yet, too,there was something uncanny about it as there had been whenthe savage growls and hideous snarls issued from those clean-cut lips.

Tarzan looked at the girl, a quizzical expression upon hisface. Again had she placed him under obligations to her, andTarzan of the Apes did not wish to be obligated to a Germanspy; yet in his honest heart he could not but admit a certainadmiration for her courage, a trait which always greatly im-pressed the ape-man, he himself the personification of courage.

"Here is the kill," he said, picking the carcass of Bara fromthe ground. "You will want to cook your portion, I presume,but Tarzan does not spoil his meat with fire."

They followed him to the boma where he cut several piecesof meat from the carcass for them, retaining a joint for him-self. The young lieutenant prepared a fire, and the girl pre-sided over the primitive culinary rights of their simple meal.As she worked some little way apart from them, the lieuten-ant and the ape-man watched her.

"She is wonderful. Is she not?" murmured Smith-Oldwick.

"She is a German and a spy," replied Tarzan.

The Englishman turned quickly upon him. "What do youmean?" he cried.

"I mean what I say," replied the ape-man. "She is a Germanand a spy."

"I do not believe it!" exclaimed the aviator.

"You do not have to," Tarzan assured him. "It is nothing tome what you believe. I saw her in conference with the Bochegeneral and his staff at the camp near Taveta. They all knewher and called her by name and she handed him a paper. Thenext time I saw her she was inside the British lines in disguise,and again I saw her bearing word to a German officer atWilhelmstal. She is a German and a spy, but she is a womanand therefore I cannot destroy her."

"You really believe that what you say is true?" asked theyoung lieutenant. "My God! I cannot believe it. She is so sweetand brave and good."

The ape-man shrugged his shoulders. "She is brave," hesaid, "but even Pamba, the rat, must have some good quality,but she is what I have told you and therefore I hate her andyou should hate her."

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick buried his face inhis hands. "God forgive me," he said at last. "I cannot hateher."

The ape-man cast a contemptuous look at his companionand arose. "Tarzan goes again to hunt," he said. "You haveenough food for two days. By that time he will return."

The two watched him until he had disappeared in the foliageof the trees at the further side of the clearing.

When he had gone the girl felt a vague sense of apprehen-sion that she never experienced when Tarzan was present. Theinvisible menaces lurking in the grim jungle seemed more realand much more imminent now that the ape-man was no longernear. While he had been there talking with them, the littlethatched hut and its surrounding thorn boma had seemed assafe a place as the world might afford. She wished that he hadremained -- two days seemed an eternity in contemplation --two days of constant fear, two days, every moment of whichwould be fraught with danger. She turned toward her com-panion.

"I wish that he had remained," she said. "I always feel somuch safer when he is near. He is very grim and very terrible,and yet I feel safer with him than with any man I ever haveknown. He seems to dislike me and yet I know that he wouldlet no harm befall me. I cannot understand him."

"Neither do I understand him," replied the Englishman;"but I know this much -- our presence here is interfering withhis plans. He would like to be rid of us, and I half imaginethat he rather hopes to find when he returns that we havesuccumbed to one of the dangers which must always confrontus in this savage land.

"I think that we should try to return to the white settle-ments. This man does not want us here, nor is it reasonableto assume that we could long survive in such a savage wilder-ness. I have traveled and hunted in several parts of Africa,but never have I seen or heard of any single locality so over-run with savage beasts and dangerous natives. If we set outfor the east coast at once we would be in but little more dangerthan we are here, and if we could survive a day's march, Ibelieve that we will find the means of reaching the coast in afew hours, for my plane must still be in the same place thatI landed just before the blacks captured me. Of course thereis no one here who could operate it nor is there any reasonwhy they should have destroyed it. As a matter of fact, thenatives would be so fearful and suspicious of so strange andincomprehensible a thing that the chances are they would notdare approach it. Yes, it must be where I left it and all readyto carry us safely to the settlements."

"But we cannot leave," said the girl, "until he returns. Wecould not go away like that without thanking him or biddinghim farewell. We are under too great obligations to him."

The man looked at her in silence for a moment. He won-dered if she knew how Tarzan felt toward her and then hehimself began to speculate upon the truth of the ape-man'scharges. The longer he looked at the girl, the less easy wasit to entertain the thought that she was an enemy spy. He wasupon the point of asking her point-blank but he could not bringhimself to do so, finally determining to wait until time andlonger acquaintance should reveal the truth or falsity of theaccusation.

"I believe," he said as though there had been no pause intheir conversation, "that the man would be more than gladto find us gone when he returns. It is not necessary to jeop-ardize our lives for two more days in order that we may thankhim, however much we may appreciate his services to us. Youhave more than balanced your obligations to him and fromwhat he told me I feel that you especially should not remainhere longer."

The girl looked up at him in astonishment. "What do youmean?" she asked.

"I do not like to tell," said the Englishman, digging nerv-ously at the turf with the point of a stick, "but you have myword that he would rather you were not here."

"Tell me what he said," she insisted, "I have a right toknow."

Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick squared his shoulders and raisedhis eyes to those of the girl. "He said that he hated you," heblurted. "He has only aided you at all from a sense of dutybecause you are a woman."

The girl paled and then flushed. "I will be ready to go,"she said, "in just a moment. We had better take some of thismeat with us. There is no telling when we will be able to getmore."

And so the two set out down the river toward the south.The man carried the short spear that Tarzan had left withthe girl, while she was entirely unarmed except for a stickshe had picked up from among those left after the building ofthe hut. Before departing she had insisted that the man leavea note for Tarzan thanking him for his care of them andbidding him goodbye. This they left pinned to the inside wall ofthe hut with a little sliver of wood.

It was necessary that they be constantly on the alert sincethey never knew what might confront them at the next turnof the winding jungle trail or what might lie concealed in thetangled bushes at either side. There was also the ever-presentdanger of meeting some of Numabo's black warriors and asthe village lay directly in their line of march, there was thenecessity for making a wide detour before they reached it inorder to pass around it without being discovered.

"I am not so much afraid of the native blacks," said the girl,"as I am of Usanga and his people. He and his men were allattached to a German native regiment. They brought mealong with them when they deserted, either with the inten-tion of holding me ransom or selling me into the haremof one of the black sultans of the north. Usanga is muchmore to be feared than Numabo for he has had the advantageof European military training and is armed with more or lessmodern weapons and ammunition."

"It is lucky for me," remarked the Englishman, "that it wasthe ignorant Numabo who discovered and captured me ratherthan the worldly wise Usanga. He would have felt less fearof the giant flying machine and would have known only toowell how to wreck it."

"Let us pray that the black sergeant has not discovered it,"said the girl.

They made their way to a point which they guessed wasabout a mile above the village, then they turned into thetrackless tangle of undergrowth to the east. So dense was theverdure at many points that it was with the utmost difficultythey wormed their way through, sometimes on hands andknees and again by clambering over numerous fallen treetrunks. Interwoven with dead limbs and living branches werethe tough and ropelike creepers which formed a tangled net-work across their path.

South of them in an open meadowland a number of blackwarriors were gathered about an object which elicited muchwondering comment. The blacks were clothed in fragmentsof what had once been uniforms of a native German com-mand. They were a most unlovely band and chief amongthem in authority and repulsiveness was the black sergeantUsanga. The object of their interest was a British aeroplane.

Immediately after the Englishman had been brought toNumabo's village Usanga had gone out in search of the plane,prompted partially by curiosity and partially by an intentionto destroy it, but when he had found it, some new thought haddeterred him from carrying out his design. The thing repre-sented considerable value as he well knew and it had occurredto him that in some way he might turn his prize to profit.Every day he had returned to it, and while at first it had filledhim with considerable awe, he eventually came to look uponit with the accustomed eye of a proprietor, so that he nowclambered into the fuselage and even advanced so far as towish that he might learn to operate it.

What a feat it would be indeed to fly like a bird far abovethe highest tree top! How it would fill his less favored com-panions with awe and admiration! If Usanga could but fly,so great would be the respect of all the tribesmen throughoutthe scattered villages of the great interior, they would lookupon him as little less than a god.

Usanga rubbed his palms together and smacked his thicklips. Then indeed, would he be very rich, for all the villageswould pay tribute to him and he could even have as many asa dozen wives. With that thought, however, came a mentalpicture of Naratu, the black termagant, who ruled him withan iron hand. Usanga made a wry face and tried to forgetthe extra dozen wives, but the lure of the idea remained andappealed so strongly to him that he presently found himselfreasoning most logically that a god would not be much of agod with less than twenty-four wives.

He fingered the instruments and the control, half hopingand half fearing that he would alight upon the combinationthat would put the machine in flight. Often had he watchedthe British air-men soaring above the German lines and itlooked so simple he was quite sure that he could do it him-self if there was somebody who could but once show himhow. There was, of course, always the hope that the whiteman who came in the machine and who had escaped fromNumabo's village might fall into Usanga's hands and thenindeed would he be able to learn how to fly. It was in this hopethat Usanga spent so much time in the vicinity of the plane,reasoning as he did that eventually the white man wouldreturn in search of it.

And at last he was rewarded, for upon this very day afterhe had quit the machine and entered the jungle with his war-riors, he heard voices to the north and when he and his menhad hidden in the dense foliage upon either side of the trail,Usanga was presently filled with elation by the appearance ofthe British officer and the white girl whom the black sergeanthad coveted and who had escaped him.

The Negro could scarce restrain a shout of elation, for hehad not hoped that fate would be so kind as to throw thesetwo whom he most desired into his power at the same time.

As the two came down the trail all unconscious of impendingdanger, the man was explaining that they must be very closeto the point at which the plane had landed. Their entireattention was centered on the trail directly ahead of them, asthey momentarily expected it to break into the meadowlandwhere they were sure they would see the plane that wouldspell life and liberty for them.

The trail was broad, and they were walking side by sideso that at a sharp turn the parklike clearing was revealed tothem simultaneously with the outlines of the machine theysought.

Exclamations of relief and delight broke from their lips, andat the same instant Usanga and his black warriors rose fromthe bushes all about them.