creature which presently
would thrust a snarling countenance from between the vines and creepers.

And then the curtain parted and a woman stepped into full view. With a
gasping cry, Tibo tumbled from his perch and raced toward her. Momaya
suddenly started back and raised her spear, but a second later she cast
it aside and caught the thin body in her strong arms.

Crushing it to her, she cried and laughed all at one and the same time,
and hot tears of joy, mingled with the tears of Tibo, trickled down the
crease between her naked breasts.

Disturbed by the noise so close at hand, there arose from his sleep in
a near-by thicket Numa, the lion. He looked through the tangled
underbrush and saw the black woman and her young. He licked his chops
and measured the distance between them and himself. A short charge and
a long leap would carry him upon them. He flicked the end of his tail
and sighed.

A vagrant breeze, swirling suddenly in the wrong direction, carried the
scent of Tarzan to the sensitive nostrils of Bara, the deer. There was
a startled tensing of muscles and cocking of ears, a sudden dash, and
Tarzan's meat was gone. The ape-man angrily shook his head and turned
back toward the spot where he had left Go-bu-balu. He came softly, as
was his way. Before he reached the spot he heard strange sounds--the
sound of a woman laughing and of a woman weeping, and the two which
seemed to come from one throat were mingled with the convulsive sobbing
of a child. Tarzan hastened, and when Tarzan hastened, only the birds
and the wind went faster.

And as Tarzan approached the sounds, he heard another, a deep sigh.
Momaya did not hear it, nor did Tibo; but the ears of Tarzan were as
the ears of Bara, the deer. He heard the sigh, and he knew, so he
unloosed the heavy spear which dangled at his back. Even as he sped
through the branches of the trees, with the same ease that you or I
might take out a pocket handkerchief as we strolled nonchalantly down a
lazy country lane, Tarzan of the Apes took the spear from its thong
that it might be ready against any emergency.

Numa, the lion, did not rush madly to attack. He reasoned again, and
reason told him that already the prey was his, so he pushed his great
bulk through the foliage and stood eyeing his meat with baleful,
glaring eyes.

Momaya saw him and shrieked, drawing Tibo closer to her breast. To
have found her child and to lose him, all in a moment! She rais