of a skeleton.

To none of these evidences of a fearful tragedy of a long dead day did
little Tarzan give but passing heed. His wild jungle life had inured
him to the sight of dead and dying animals, and had he known that he
was looking upon the remains of his own father and mother he would have
been no more greatly moved.

The furnishings and other contents of the room it was which riveted his
attention. He examined many things minutely--strange tools and
weapons, books, paper, clothing--what little had withstood the ravages
of time in the humid atmosphere of the jungle coast.

He opened chests and cupboards, such as did not baffle his small
experience, and in these he found the contents much better preserved.

Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of
which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he
continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters
of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.

For a long time this amused him, but finally tiring he continued his
explorations. In a cupboard filled with books he came across one with
brightly colored pictures--it was a child's illustrated alphabet--

A is for Archer
Who shoots with a bow.
B is for Boy,
His first name is Joe.

The pictures interested him greatly.

There were many apes with faces similar to his own, and further over in
the book he found, under "M," some little monkeys such as he saw daily
flitting through the trees of his primeval forest. But nowhere was
pictured any of his own people; in all the book was none that resembled
Kerchak, or Tublat, or Kala.

At first he tried to pick the little figures from the leaves, but he
soon saw that they were not real, though he knew not what they might
be, nor had he any words to describe them.

The boats, and trains, and cows and horses were quite meaningless to
him, but not quite so baffling as the odd little figures which appeared
beneath and between the colored pictures--some strange kind of bug he
thought they might be, for many of them had legs though nowhere could
he find one with eyes and a mouth. It was his first introduction to
the letters of the alphabet, and he was over ten years old.

Of course he had never before seen print, or ever had spoken with any
living thing which had the remotest idea that such a thing as a written
language existed, nor ever had he