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Then he scooped a small, round hole in the surface of the prostrate trunk. Into

this he crumbled a few bits of dry bark, minutely shredded, after which he

inserted the tip of his pointed stick, and, sitting astride the bole of the tree, spun

the slender rod rapidly between his palms.

After a time a thin smoke rose from the little mass of tinder, and a moment later

the whole broke into flame. Heaping some larger twigs and sticks upon the tiny

fire, Tarzan soon had quite a respectable blaze roaring in the enlarging cavity of

the dead tree.

Into this he thrust the blade of his stone knife, and as it became superheated he

would withdraw it, touching a spot near the thin edge with a drop of moisture.

Beneath the wetted area a little flake of the glassy material would crack and scale

away.

Thus, very slowly, the ape-man commenced the tedious operation of putting a

thin edge upon his primitive hunting-knife.

He did not attempt to accomplish the feat all in one sitting. At first he was

content to achieve a cutting edge of a couple of inches, with which he cut a long,

pliable bow, a handle for his knife, a stout cudgel, and a goodly supply of arrows.

These he cached in a tall tree beside a little stream, and here also he constructed

a platform with a roof of palm-leaves above it.

When all these things had been finished it was growing dusk, and Tarzan felt a

strong desire to eat.

He had noted during the brief incursion he had made into the forest that a short

distance up-stream from his tree there was a much-used watering place, where,

from the trampled mud of either bank, it was evident beasts of all sorts and in

great numbers came to drink. To this spot the hungry ape-man made his silent

way.

Through the upper terrace of the tree-tops he swung with the grace and ease of a

monkey. But for the heavy burden upon his heart he would have been happy in

this return to the old free life of his boyhood.

Yet even with that burden he fell into the little habits and manners of his early

life that were in reality more a part of him than the thin veneer of civilization that

the past three years of his association with the white men of the outer world had

spread lightly over him--a veneer that only hid the crudities of the beast that

Tarzan of the Apes had been.

The Beasts of Tarzan