rst,
though the farther the ape-man continued along the trail the more
obvious it became that the man was rapidly overhauling his quarry.

At first there had been the spoor of wild beasts over the footprints of
Jane Clayton, while upon the top of all Rokoff's spoor showed that he
had passed over the trail after the animals had left their records upon
the ground. But later there were fewer and fewer animal imprints
occurring between those of Jane's and the Russian's feet, until as he
approached the river the ape-man became aware that Rokoff could not
have been more than a few hundred yards behind the girl.

He felt they must be close ahead of him now, and, with a little thrill
of expectation, he leaped rapidly forward ahead of the pack. Swinging
swiftly through the trees, he came out upon the river-bank at the very
point at which Rokoff had overhauled Jane as she endeavoured to launch
the cumbersome dugout.

In the mud along the bank the ape-man saw the footprints of the two he
sought, but there was neither boat nor people there when he arrived,
nor, at first glance, any sign of their whereabouts.

It was plain that they had shoved off a native canoe and embarked upon
the bosom of the stream, and as the ape-man's eye ran swiftly down the
course of the river beneath the shadows of the overarching trees he saw
in the distance, just as it rounded a bend that shut it off from his
view, a drifting dugout in the stern of which was the figure of a man.

Just as the pack came in sight of the river they saw their agile leader
racing down the river's bank, leaping from hummock to hummock of the
swampy ground that spread between them and a little promontory which
rose just where the river curved inward from their sight.

To follow him it was necessary for the heavy, cumbersome apes to make a
wide detour, and Sheeta, too, who hated water. Mugambi followed after
them as rapidly as he could in the wake of the great white master.

A half-hour of rapid travelling across the swampy neck of land and over
the rising promontory brought Tarzan, by a short cut, to the inward
bend of the winding river, and there before him upon the bosom of the
stream he saw the dugout, and in its stern Nikolas Rokoff.

Jane was not with the Russian.

At sight of his enemy the broad scar upon the ape-man's brow burned
scarlet, and there rose to his lips the hideous, bestial challenge of
the bull-ape.

Rokoff shuddered as the weird and terrible a