on him in an
instant. Thus they stood while Teeka came across the clearing, going
more slowly as she neared the panther, for even her mother love could
scarce overcome her instinctive terror of this natural enemy of her
kind.

Behind her came Taug, warily and with many pauses and much bluster, and
still behind him came other bulls, snarling ferociously and uttering
their uncanny challenges. Sheeta's yellow-green eyes glared terribly
at Tarzan, and past Tarzan they shot brief glances at the apes of
Kerchak advancing upon him. Discretion prompted him to turn and flee,
but hunger and the close proximity of the tempting morsel in the grass
before him urged him to remain. He reached forth a paw toward Teeka's
balu, and as he did so, with a savage guttural, Tarzan of the Apes was
upon him.

The panther reared to meet the ape-man's attack. He swung a frightful
raking blow for Tarzan that would have wiped his face away had it
landed, but it did not land, for Tarzan ducked beneath it and closed,
his long knife ready in one strong hand--the knife of his dead father,
of the father he never had known.

Instantly the balu was forgotten by Sheeta, the panther. He now
thought only of tearing to ribbons with his powerful talons the flesh
of his antagonist, of burying his long, yellow fangs in the soft,
smooth hide of the ape-man, but Tarzan had fought before with clawed
creatures of the jungle. Before now he had battled with fanged
monsters, nor always had he come away unscathed. He knew the risk that
he ran, but Tarzan of the Apes, inured to the sight of suffering and
death, shrank from neither, for he feared neither.

The instant that he dodged beneath Sheeta's blow, he leaped to the
beast's rear and then full upon the tawny back, burying his teeth in
Sheeta's neck and the fingers of one hand in the fur at the throat, and
with the other hand he drove his blade into Sheeta's side.

Over and over upon the grass rolled Sheeta, growling and screaming,
clawing and biting, in a mad effort to dislodge his antagonist or get
some portion of his body within range of teeth or talons.

As Tarzan leaped to close quarters with the panther, Teeka had run
quickly in and snatched up her balu. Now she sat upon a high branch,
safe out of harm's way, cuddling the little thing close to her hairy
breast, the while her savage little eyes bored down upon the
contestants in the clearing, and her ferocious voice urged Taug and the
other bulls