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easy prey for the savage carnivores or the cruel Wamabos. Tarzan of the Apes

loved unfettered freedom, and now that these two were safely off his hands, he

felt that he could continue upon his journey toward the west coast and the long-

untenanted cabin of his dead father.

And yet, as he stood there watching the tiny speck in the east, another sigh

heaved his broad chest, nor was it a sigh of relief, but rather a sensation which

Tarzan had never expected to feel again and which he now disliked to admit even

to himself. It could not be possible that he, the jungle bred, who had renounced

forever the society of man to return to his beloved beasts of the wilds, could be

feeling anything akin to regret at the departure of these two, or any slightest

loneliness now that they were gone. Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick

Tarzan had liked, but the woman whom he had known as a German spy he had

hated, though he never had found it in his heart to slay her as he had sworn to

slay all Huns. He had attributed this weakness to the fact that she was a woman,

although he had been rather troubled by the apparent inconsistency of his hatred

for her and his repeated protection of her when danger threatened.

With an irritable toss of his head he wheeled suddenly toward the west as though

by turning his back upon the fast disappearing plane he might expunge thoughts

of its passengers from his memory. At the edge of the clearing he paused; a giant

tree loomed directly ahead of him and, as though actuated by sudden and

irresistible impulse, he leaped into the branches and swung himself with apelike

agility to the topmost limbs that would sustain his weight. There, balancing

lightly upon a swaying bough, he sought in the direction of the eastern horizon

for the tiny speck that would be the British plane bearing away from him the last

of his own race and kind that he expected ever again to see.

At last his keen eyes picked up the ship flying at a considerable altitude far in the

east. For a few seconds he watched it speeding evenly eastward, when, to his

horror, he saw the speck dive suddenly downward. The fall seemed interminable

to the watcher and he realized how great must have been the altitude of the plane

before the drop commenced. Just before it disappeared from sight its downward

momentum appeared to abate suddenly, but it was still moving rapidly at a steep

angle when it finally disappeared from view behind the far hills.

For half a minute the ape-man stood noting distant landmarks that he judged

might be in the vicinity of the fallen plane, for no sooner had he realized that

these people were again in trouble than his inherent sense of duty to his own

kind impelled him once more to forego his plans and seek to aid them.

The ape-man feared from what he judged of the location of the machine that it

had fallen among the almost impassable gorges of the arid country just beyond

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Tarzan the Untamed