ostrils a diversity of scents but there
was not among them the slightest suggestion of her whom he sought. The
natural deduction was therefore that she had been taken in some other
direction. In his search he had many times crossed the fresh tracks of
many men leading toward the lake and these he concluded had probably
been made by Jane Clayton's abductors. It had only been to minimize the
chance of error by the process of elimination that he had carefully
reconnoitered every other avenue leading from A-lur toward the
southeast where lay Mo-sar's city of Tu-lur, and now he followed the
trail to the shores of Jad-ben-lul where the party had embarked upon
the quiet waters in their sturdy canoes.

He found many other craft of the same description moored along the
shore and one of these he commandeered for the purpose of pursuit. It
was daylight when he passed through the lake which lies next below
Jad-ben-lul and paddling strongly passed within sight of the very tree
in which his lost mate lay sleeping.

Had the gentle wind that caressed the bosom of the lake been blowing
from a southerly direction the giant ape-man and Jane Clayton would
have been reunited then, but an unkind fate had willed otherwise and
the opportunity passed with the passing of his canoe which presently
his powerful strokes carried out of sight into the stream at the lower
end of the lake.

Following the winding river which bore a considerable distance to the
north before doubling back to empty into the Jad-in-lul, the ape-man
missed a portage that would have saved him hours of paddling.

It was at the upper end of this portage where Mo-sar and his warriors
had debarked that the chief discovered the absence of his captive. As
Mo-sar had been asleep since shortly after their departure from A-lur,
and as none of the warriors recalled when she had last been seen, it
was impossible to conjecture with any degree of accuracy the place
where she had escaped. The consensus of opinion was, however, that it
had been in the narrow river connecting Jad-ben-lul with the lake next
below it, which is called Jad-bal-lul, which freely translated means
the lake of gold. Mo-sar had been very wroth and having himself been
the only one at fault he naturally sought with great diligence to fix
the blame upon another.

He would have returned in search of her had he not feared to meet a
pursuing company dispatched either by Ja-don or the high priest, both
of whom, he kne