ended
for miles to terminate at last at the foot of lofty, snow-capped
mountains. It was a land that Tarzan never had looked upon before,
nor was it likely that the foot of another white man ever had
touched it unless, possibly, in some long-gone day the adventurer
whose skeleton he had found bleaching in the canyon had traversed
it.

Chapter VIII

Tarzan and the Great Apes

Three days the ape-man spent in resting and recuperating, eating
fruits and nuts and the smaller animals that were most easily
bagged, and upon the fourth he set out to explore the valley and
search for the great apes. Time was a negligible factor in the
equation of life--it was all the same to Tarzan if he reached the
west coast in a month or a year or three years. All time was his and
all Africa. His was absolute freedom--the last tie that had bound
him to civilization and custom had been severed. He was alone but
he was not exactly lonely. The greater part of his life had been
spent thus, and though there was no other of his kind, he was at
all times surrounded by the jungle peoples for whom familiarity had
bred no contempt within his breast. The least of them interested
him, and, too, there were those with whom he always made friends
easily, and there were his hereditary enemies whose presence gave a
spice to life that might otherwise have become humdrum and monotonous.

And so it was that on the fourth day he set out to explore the
valley and search for his fellow-apes. He had proceeded southward
for a short distance when his nostrils were assailed by the scent
of man, of Gomangani, the black man. There were many of them, and
mixed with their scent was another-that of a she Tarmangani.

Swinging through the trees Tarzan approached the authors of these
disturbing scents. He came warily from the flank, but paying no
attention to the wind, for he knew that man with his dull senses
could apprehend him only through his eyes or ears and then only
when comparatively close. Had he been stalking Numa or Sheeta he
would have circled about until his quarry was upwind from him, thus
taking practically all the advantage up to the very moment that
he came within sight or hearing; but in the stalking of the dull
clod, man, he approached with almost contemptuous indifference,
so that all the jungle about him knew that he was passing--all but
the men he stalked.

From the dense foliage of a great tree he watched them pass--a
disreputable mob o