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With bated breath she groped beneath the little mound, scarce daring to hope
that the treasure remained where she had left it; but, to her infinite relief and joy,
her hand came at once upon the barrel of the heavy weapon and then upon the
bandoleer of cartridges.
As she threw the latter about her shoulder and felt the weight of the big game-
gun in her hand a sudden sense of security suffused her. It was with new hope
and a feeling almost of assured success that she again set forward upon her
journey.
That night she slept in the crotch of a tree, as Tarzan had so often told her that
he was accustomed to doing, and early the next morning was upon her way
again. Late in the afternoon, as she was about to cross a little clearing, she was
startled at the sight of a huge ape coming from the jungle upon the opposite side.
The wind was blowing directly across the clearing between them, and Jane lost no
time in putting herself downwind from the huge creature. Then she hid in a
clump of heavy bush and watched, holding the rifle ready for instant use.
To her consternation she saw that the apes were pausing in the centre of the
clearing. They came together in a little knot, where they stood looking backward,
as though in expectation of the coming of others of their tribe. Jane wished that
they would go on, for she knew that at any moment some little, eddying gust of
wind might carry her scent down to their nostrils, and then what would the
protection of her rifle amount to in the face of those gigantic muscles and mighty
fangs?
Her eyes moved back and forth between the apes and the edge of the jungle
toward which they were gazing until at last she perceived the object of their halt
and the thing that they awaited. They were being stalked.
Of this she was positive, as she saw the lithe, sinewy form of a panther glide
noiselessly from the jungle at the point at which the apes had emerged but a
moment before.
Quickly the beast trotted across the clearing toward the anthropoids. Jane
wondered at their apparent apathy, and a moment later her wonder turned to
amazement as she saw the great cat come quite close to the apes, who appeared
entirely unconcerned by its presence, and, squatting down in their midst, fell
assiduously to the business of preening, which occupies most of the waking
hours of the cat family.
If the young woman was surprised by the sight of these natural enemies
fraternizing, it was with emotions little short of fear for her own sanity that she
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