27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
1 | 61 | 121 | 182 | 242 |
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Presently, as he passed through a clump of bushes, he came to the edge of a low
cliff and saw upon a ledge some fifteen feet below him a German soldier prone
behind an embankment of loose rock and leafy boughs that hid him from the view
of the British lines. The man must have been an excellent shot, for he was well
back of the German lines, firing over the heads of his fellows. His high-powered
rifle was equipped with telescope sights and he also carried binoculars which he
was in the act of using as Tarzan discovered him, either to note the effect of his
last shot or to discover a new target. Tarzan let his eye move quickly toward that
part of the British line the German seemed to be scanning, his keen sight
revealing many excellent targets for a rifle placed so high above the trenches.
The Hun, evidently satisfied with his observations, laid aside his binoculars and
again took up his rifle, placed its butt in the hollow of his shoulder and took
careful aim. At the same instant a brown body sprang outward from the cliff
above him. There was no sound and it is doubtful that the German ever knew
what manner of creature it was that alighted heavily upon his back, for at the
instant of impact the sinewy fingers of the ape-man circled the hairy throat of the
Boche. There was a moment of futile struggling followed by the sudden realization
of dissolution--the sniper was dead.
Lying behind the rampart of rocks and boughs, Tarzan looked down upon the
scene below. Near at hand were the trenches of the Germans. He could see
officers and men moving about in them and almost in front of him a well-hidden
machine gun was traversing No Man's Land in an oblique direction, striking the
British at such an angle as to make it difficult for them to locate it.
Tarzan watched, toying idly with the rifle of the dead German. Presently he fell to
examining the mechanism of the piece. He glanced again toward the German
trenches and changed the adjustment of the sights, then he placed the rifle to his
shoulder and took aim. Tarzan was an excellent shot. With his civilized friends he
had hunted big game with the weapons of civilization and though he never had
killed except for food or in self-defense he had amused himself firing at inanimate
targets thrown into the air and had perfected himself in the use of firearms
without realizing that he had done so. Now indeed would he hunt big game. A
slow smile touched his lips as his finger closed gradually upon the trigger. The
rifle spoke and a German machine gunner collapsed behind his weapon. In three
minutes Tarzan picked off the crew of that gun. Then he spotted a German officer
emerging from a dugout and the three men in the bay with him. Tarzan was
careful to leave no one in the immediate vicinity to question how Germans could
be shot in German trenches when they were entirely concealed from enemy view.
Again adjusting his sights he took a long-range shot at a distant machine-gun
crew to his right. With calm deliberation he wiped them out to a man. Two guns
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