raternizing, it was with emotions little short of fear for her own
sanity that she presently saw a tall, muscular warrior enter the
clearing and join the group of savage beasts assembled there.

At first sight of the man she had been positive that he would be torn
to pieces, and she had half risen from her shelter, raising her rifle
to her shoulder to do what she could to avert the man's terrible fate.

Now she saw that he seemed actually conversing with the beasts--issuing
orders to them.

Presently the entire company filed on across the clearing and
disappeared in the jungle upon the opposite side.

With a gasp of mingled incredulity and relief Jane Clayton staggered to
her feet and fled on away from the terrible horde that had just passed
her, while a half-mile behind her another individual, following the
same trail as she, lay frozen with terror behind an ant-hill as the
hideous band passed quite close to him.

This one was Rokoff; but he had recognized the members of the awful
aggregation as allies of Tarzan of the Apes. No sooner, therefore,
had the beasts passed him than he rose and raced through the jungle as
fast as he could go, in order that he might put as much distance as
possible between himself and these frightful beasts.

So it happened that as Jane Clayton came to the bank of the river, down
which she hoped to float to the ocean and eventual rescue, Nikolas
Rokoff was but a short distance in her rear.

Upon the bank the girl saw a great dugout drawn half-way from the water
and tied securely to a near-by tree.

This, she felt, would solve the question of transportation to the sea
could she but launch the huge, unwieldy craft. Unfastening the rope
that had moored it to the tree, Jane pushed frantically upon the bow of
the heavy canoe, but for all the results that were apparent she might
as well have been attempting to shove the earth out of its orbit.

She was about winded when it occurred to her to try working the dugout
into the stream by loading the stern with ballast and then rocking the
bow back and forth along the bank until the craft eventually worked
itself into the river.

There were no stones or rocks available, but along the shore she found
quantities of driftwood deposited by the river at a slightly higher
stage. These she gathered and piled far in the stern of the boat,
until at last, to her immense relief, she saw the bow rise gently from
the mud of the bank and the stern drif