His balu was a greater responsibility than he had counted upon. Not
for a moment did he dare leave it, since of all the tribe, Teeka alone
could have been depended upon to refrain from slaying the hapless black
had it not been for Tarzan's constant watchfulness. When the ape-man
hunted, he must carry Go-bu-balu about with him. It was irksome, and
then the little black seemed so stupid and fearful to Tarzan. It was
quite helpless against even the lesser of the jungle creatures. Tarzan
wondered how it had survived at all. He tried to teach it, and found a
ray of hope in the fact that Go-bu-balu had mastered a few words of the
language of the anthropoids, and that he could now cling to a
high-tossed branch without screaming in fear; but there was something
about the child which worried Tarzan. He often had watched the blacks
within their village. He had seen the children playing, and always
there had been much laughter; but little Go-bu-balu never laughed. It
was true that Tarzan himself never laughed. Upon occasion he smiled,
grimly, but to laughter he was a stranger. The black, however, should
have laughed, reasoned the ape-man. It was the way of the Gomangani.

Also, he saw that the little fellow often refused food and was growing
thinner day by day. At times he surprised the boy sobbing softly to
himself. Tarzan tried to comfort him, even as fierce Kala had
comforted Tarzan when the ape-man was a balu, but all to no avail.
Go-bu-balu merely no longer feared Tarzan--that was all. He feared
every other living thing within the jungle. He feared the jungle days
with their long excursions through the dizzy tree tops. He feared the
jungle nights with their swaying, perilous couches far above the
ground, and the grunting and coughing of the great carnivora prowling
beneath him.

Tarzan did not know what to do. His heritage of English blood rendered
it a difficult thing even to consider a surrender of his project,
though he was forced to admit to himself that his balu was not all that
he had hoped. Though he was faithful to his self-imposed task, and
even found that he had grown to like Go-bu-balu, he could not deceive
himself into believing that he felt for it that fierce heat of
passionate affection which Teeka revealed for Gazan, and which the
black mother had shown for Go-bu-balu.

The little black boy from cringing terror at the sight of Tarzan passed
by degrees into trustfulness and admiration. Onl