him in until the clutching hands fastened upon a limb.

Quickly Taug drew himself to a position of safety and shook off the
noose. In his rage-maddened heart was no room for gratitude to the
ape-man. He recalled only the fact that Tarzan had laid this painful
indignity upon him. He would be revenged, but just at present his legs
were so numb and his head so dizzy that he must postpone the
gratification of his vengeance.

Tarzan was coiling his rope the while he lectured Taug on the futility
of pitting his poor powers, physical and intellectual, against those of
his betters. Teeka had come close beneath the tree and was peering
upward. Sheeta was worming his way stealthily forward, his belly close
to the ground. In another moment he would be clear of the underbrush
and ready for the rapid charge and the quick retreat that would end the
brief existence of Teeka's balu.

Then Tarzan chanced to look up and across the clearing. Instantly his
attitude of good-natured bantering and pompous boastfulness dropped
from him. Silently and swiftly he shot downward toward the ground.
Teeka, seeing him coming, and thinking that he was after her or her
balu, bristled and prepared to fight. But Tarzan sped by her, and as
he went, her eyes followed him and she saw the cause of his sudden
descent and his rapid charge across the clearing. There in full sight
now was Sheeta, the panther, stalking slowly toward the tiny, wriggling
balu which lay among the grasses many yards away.

Teeka gave voice to a shrill scream of terror and of warning as she
dashed after the ape-man. Sheeta saw Tarzan coming. He saw the
she-ape's cub before him, and he thought that this other was bent upon
robbing him of his prey. With an angry growl, he charged.

Taug, warned by Teeka's cry, came lumbering down to her assistance.
Several other bulls, growling and barking, closed in toward the
clearing, but they were all much farther from the balu and the panther
than was Tarzan of the Apes, so it was that Sheeta and the ape-man
reached Teeka's little one almost simultaneously; and there they stood,
one upon either side of it, baring their fangs and snarling at each
other over the little creature.

Sheeta was afraid to seize the balu, for thus he would give the ape-man
an opening for attack; and for the same reason Tarzan hesitated to
snatch the panther's prey out of harm's way, for had he stooped to
accomplish this, the great beast would have been up