hich, together with the vile stench which permeated it,
rendered it anything other than a desirable addition to a wardrobe.
But the time came when for the sake of decency he was compelled to don
it, and even the misery of their condition could not prevent Jane
Porter from laughing heartily at sight of him.

Later, Thuran also found it necessary to construct a similar primitive
garment, so that, with their bare legs and heavily bearded faces, they
looked not unlike reincarnations of two prehistoric progenitors of the
human race. Thuran acted like one.

Nearly two months of this existence had passed when the first great
calamity befell them. It was prefaced by an adventure which came near
terminating abruptly the sufferings of two of them--terminating them in
the grim and horrible manner of the jungle, forever.

Thuran, down with an attack of jungle fever, lay in the shelter among
the branches of their tree of refuge. Clayton had been into the jungle
a few hundred yards in search of food. As he returned Jane Porter
walked to meet him. Behind the man, cunning and crafty, crept an old
and mangy lion. For three days his ancient thews and sinews had proved
insufficient for the task of providing his cavernous belly with meat.
For months he had eaten less and less frequently, and farther and
farther had he roamed from his accustomed haunts in search of easier
prey. At last he had found nature's weakest and most defenseless
creature--in a moment more Numa would dine.

Clayton, all unconscious of the lurking death behind him, strode out
into the open toward Jane. He had reached her side, a hundred feet
from the tangled edge of jungle when past his shoulder the girl saw the
tawny head and the wicked yellow eyes as the grasses parted, and the
huge beast, nose to ground, stepped softly into view.

So frozen with horror was she that she could utter no sound, but the
fixed and terrified gaze of her fear-widened eyes spoke as plainly to
Clayton as words. A quick glance behind him revealed the hopelessness
of their situation. The lion was scarce thirty paces from them, and
they were equally as far from the shelter. The man was armed with a
stout stick--as efficacious against a hungry lion, he realized, as a
toy pop-gun charged with a tethered cork.

Numa, ravenous with hunger, had long since learned the futility of
roaring and moaning as he searched for prey, but now that it was as
surely his as though already he had fe