atly increased resourcefulness which found
him constantly growing in intelligence and powers of observation.

Today he had been hunting toward the south and was returning along
the river upon a path he often followed because it led by the
village of the Gomangani whose strange and almost apelike actions
and peculiar manners of living had aroused his interest and curiosity.
As he had done upon other occasions he took up his position in a
tree from which he could overlook the interior of the village and
watch the blacks at their vocations in the street below.

Zu-tag had scarcely more than established himself in his tree when,
with the blacks, he was startled by the crashing of Tarzan's body
from the branches of another jungle giant to the ground within the
palisade. He saw the Negroes gather about the prostrate form and
later carry it into the hut; and once he rose to his full height
upon the limb where he had been squatting and raised his face to
the heavens to scream out a savage protest and a challenge, for he
had recognized in the brown-skinned Tarmangani the strange white
ape who had come among them a night or two before in the midst of
their Dum-Dum, and who by so easily mastering the greatest among
them, had won the savage respect and admiration of this fierce
young bull.

But Zu-tag's ferocity was tempered by a certain native cunning and
caution. Before he had voiced his protest there formed in his mind
the thought that he would like to save this wonderful white ape
from the common enemy, the Gomangani, and so he screamed forth no
challenge, wisely determined that more could be accomplished by
secrecy and stealth than by force of muscle and fang.

At first he thought to enter the village alone and carry off the
Tarmangani; but when he saw how numerous were the warriors and that
several sat directly before the entrance to the lair into which the
prisoner had been carried, it occurred to him that this was work
for many rather than one, and so, as silently as he had come, he
slipped away though the foliage toward the north.

The tribe was still loitering about the clearing where stood the hut
that Tarzan and Bertha Kircher had built. Some were idly searching
for food just within the forest's edge, while others squatted
beneath the shade of trees within the clearing.

The girl had emerged from the hut, her tears dried and was gazing
anxiously toward the south into the jungle where Tarzan had disappeared.
Occa