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leading toward the east, and as he set out upon it something prompted him to
feel for the locket he had hung about his neck. It was gone!
No trace of anger was apparent upon the ape-man's face unless it was a slight
tightening of the jaws; but he put his hand ruefully to the back of his head where
a bump marked the place where the girl had struck him and a moment later a
half-smile played across his lips. He could not help but admit that she had
tricked him neatly, and that it must have taken nerve to do the thing she did and
to set out armed only with a pistol through the trackless waste that lay between
them and the railway and beyond into the hills where Wilhelmstal lies.
Tarzan admired courage. He was big enough to admit it and admire it even in a
German spy, but he saw that in this case it only added to her resourcefulness
and made her all the more dangerous and the necessity for putting her out of the
way paramount. He hoped to overtake her before she reached Wilhelmstal and so
he set out at the swinging trot that he could hold for hours at a stretch without
apparent fatigue.
That the girl could hope to reach the town on foot in less than two days seemed
improbable, for it was a good thirty miles and part of it hilly. Even as the thought
crossed his mind he heard the whistle of a locomotive to the east and knew that
the railway was in operation again after a shutdown of several days. If the train
was going south the girl would signal it if she had reached the right of way. His
keen ears caught the whining of brake shoes on wheels and a few minutes later
the signal blast for brakes off. The train had stopped and started again and, as it
gained headway and greater distance, Tarzan could tell from the direction of the
sound that it was moving south.
The ape-man followed the trail to the railway where it ended abruptly on the west
side of the track, showing that the girl had boarded the train, just as he thought.
There was nothing now but to follow on to Wilhelmstal, where he hoped to find
Captain Fritz Schneider, as well as the girl, and to recover his diamond-studded
locket.
It was dark when Tarzan reached the little hill town of Wilhelmstal. He loitered on
the outskirts, getting his bearings and trying to determine how an almost naked
white man might explore the village without arousing suspicion. There were many
soldiers about and the town was under guard, for he could see a lone sentinel
walking his post scarce a hundred yards from him. To elude this one would not
be difficult; but to enter the village and search it would be practically impossible,
garbed, or un-garbed, as he was.
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