of a female caught sight of him first. With a barking
guttural she called the attention of the others. Several huge bulls
stood erect to get a better view of the intruder. With bared fangs and
bristling necks they advanced slowly toward him, with deep-throated,
ominous growls.

"Karnath, I am Tarzan of the Apes," said the ape-man in the vernacular
of the tribe. "You remember me. Together we teased Numa when we were
still little apes, throwing sticks and nuts at him from the safety of
high branches."

The brute he had addressed stopped with a look of half-comprehending,
dull wonderment upon his savage face.

"And Magor," continued Tarzan, addressing another, "do you not recall
your former king--he who slew the mighty Kerchak? Look at me! Am I
not the same Tarzan--mighty hunter--invincible fighter--that you all
knew for many seasons?"

The apes all crowded forward now, but more in curiosity than
threatening. They muttered among themselves for a few moments.

"What do you want among us now?" asked Karnath.

"Only peace," answered the ape-man.

Again the apes conferred. At length Karnath spoke again.

"Come in peace, then, Tarzan of the Apes," he said.

And so Tarzan of the Apes dropped lightly to the turf into the midst of
the fierce and hideous horde--he had completed the cycle of evolution,
and had returned to be once again a brute among brutes.

There were no greetings such as would have taken place among men after
a separation of two years. The majority of the apes went on about the
little activities that the advent of the ape-man had interrupted,
paying no further attention to him than as though he had not been gone
from the tribe at all.

One or two young bulls who had not been old enough to remember him
sidled up on all fours to sniff at him, and one bared his fangs and
growled threateningly--he wished to put Tarzan immediately into his
proper place. Had Tarzan backed off, growling, the young bull would
quite probably have been satisfied, but always after Tarzan's station
among his fellow apes would have been beneath that of the bull which
had made him step aside.

But Tarzan of the Apes did not back off. Instead, he swung his giant
palm with all the force of his mighty muscles, and, catching the young
bull alongside the head, sent him sprawling across the turf. The ape
was up and at him again in a second, and this time they closed with
tearing fingers and rending fangs--or at least that