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mouth at the far end of the gulch, some hundred feet away. As he neared the foot

of the cliff his danger increased greatly. If he could reach the bottom and cover

half the distance to the tree that stood in the center of the gulch he would feel

comparatively safe for then, even if Numa appeared, he felt that he could beat

him either to the cliff or to the tree, but to scale the first thirty feet of the cliff

rapidly enough to elude the leaping beast would require a running start of at least

twenty feet as there were no very good hand- or footholds close to the bottom--he

had had to run up the first twenty feet like a squirrel running up a tree that other

time he had beaten an infuriated Numa to it. He had no desire to attempt it again

unless the conditions were equally favorable at least, for he had escaped Numa's

raking talons by only a matter of inches on the former occasion.

At last he stood upon the floor of the gulch. Silent as a disembodied spirit he

advanced toward the tree. He was half way there and no sign of Numa. He

reached the scarred bole from which the famished lion had devoured the bark

and even torn pieces of the wood itself and yet Numa had not appeared. As he

drew himself up to the lower branches he commenced to wonder if Numa were in

the cave after all. Could it be possible that he had forced the barrier of rocks with

which Tarzan had plugged the other end of the passage where it opened into the

outer world of freedom? Or was Numa dead? The ape-man doubted the verity of

the latter suggestion as he had fed the lion the entire carcasses of a deer and a

hyena only a few days since--he could not have starved in so short a time, while

the little rivulet running across the gulch furnished him with water a-plenty.

Tarzan started to descend and investigate the cavern when it occurred to him

that it would save effort were he to lure Numa out instead. Acting upon the

thought he uttered a low growl. Immediately he was rewarded by the sound of a

movement within the cave and an instant later a wild-eyed, haggard lion rushed

forth ready to face the devil himself were he edible. When Numa saw Tarzan, fat

and sleek, perched in the tree he became suddenly the embodiment of frightful

rage. His eyes and his nose told him that this was the creature responsible for his

predicament and also that this creature was good to eat. Frantically the lion

sought to scramble up the bole of the tree. Twice he leaped high enough to catch

the lowest branches with his paws, but both times he fell backward to the earth.

Each time he became more furious. His growls and roars were incessant and

horrible and all the time Tarzan sat grinning down upon him, taunting him in

jungle billingsgate for his inability to reach him and mentally exulting that always

Numa was wasting his already waning strength.

Finally the ape-man rose and un-slung his rope. He arranged the coils carefully

in his left hand and the noose in his right, and then he took a position with each

foot on one of two branches that lay in about the same horizontal plane and with

Tarzan the Untamed