ttle for existence that had been his sole birthright for the first
twenty years of his life.

3

The Call of the Jungle

Moved by these vague yet all-powerful urgings the ape-man lay awake one
night in the little thorn boma that protected, in a way, his party from
the depredations of the great carnivora of the jungle. A single
warrior stood sleepy guard beside the fire that yellow eyes out of the
darkness beyond the camp made imperative. The moans and the coughing
of the big cats mingled with the myriad noises of the lesser denizens
of the jungle to fan the savage flame in the breast of this savage
English lord. He tossed upon his bed of grasses, sleepless, for an
hour and then he rose, noiseless as a wraith, and while the Waziri's
back was turned, vaulted the boma wall in the face of the flaming eyes,
swung silently into a great tree and was gone.

For a time in sheer exuberance of animal spirit he raced swiftly
through the middle terrace, swinging perilously across wide spans from
one jungle giant to the next, and then he clambered upward to the
swaying, lesser boughs of the upper terrace where the moon shone full
upon him and the air was stirred by little breezes and death lurked
ready in each frail branch. Here he paused and raised his face to
Goro, the moon. With uplifted arm he stood, the cry of the bull ape
quivering upon his lips, yet he remained silent lest he arouse his
faithful Waziri who were all too familiar with the hideous challenge of
their master.

And then he went on more slowly and with greater stealth and caution,
for now Tarzan of the Apes was seeking a kill. Down to the ground he
came in the utter blackness of the close-set boles and the overhanging
verdure of the jungle. He stooped from time to time and put his nose
close to earth. He sought and found a wide game trail and at last his
nostrils were rewarded with the scent of the fresh spoor of Bara, the
deer. Tarzan's mouth watered and a low growl escaped his patrician
lips. Sloughed from him was the last vestige of artificial caste--once
again he was the primeval hunter--the first man--the highest caste type
of the human race. Up wind he followed the elusive spoor with a sense
of perception so transcending that of ordinary man as to be
inconceivable to us. Through counter currents of the heavy stench of
meat eaters he traced the trail of Bara; the sweet and cloying stink of
Horta, the boar, could not drown his quarry's sc