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Chapter 4 - Sheeta

The next few days were occupied by Tarzan in completing his weapons and

exploring the jungle. He strung his bow with tendons from the buck upon which

he had dined his first evening upon the new shore, and though he would have

preferred the gut of Sheeta for the purpose, he was content to wait until

opportunity permitted him to kill one of the great cats.

He also braided a long grass rope--such a rope as he had used so many years

before to tantalize the ill-natured Tublat, and which later had developed into a

wondrous effective weapon in the practised hands of the little ape-boy.

A sheath and handle for his hunting-knife he fashioned, and a quiver for arrows,

and from the hide of Bara a belt and loin-cloth. Then he set out to learn

something of the strange land in which he found himself. That it was not his old

familiar west coast of the African continent he knew from the fact that it faced

east--the rising sun came up out of the sea before the threshold of the jungle.

But that it was not the east coast of Africa he was equally positive, for he felt

satisfied that the Kincaid had not passed through the Mediterranean, the Suez

Canal, and the Red Sea, nor had she had time to round the Cape of Good Hope.

So he was quite at a loss to know where he might be.

Sometimes he wondered if the ship had crossed the broad Atlantic to deposit him

upon some wild South American shore; but the presence of Numa, the lion,

decided him that such could not be the case.

As Tarzan made his lonely way through the jungle paralleling the shore, he felt

strong upon him a desire for companionship, so that gradually he commenced to

regret that he had not cast his lot with the apes. He had seen nothing of them

since that first day, when the influences of civilization were still paramount

within him.

Now he was more nearly returned to the Tarzan of old, and though he appreciated

the fact that there could be little in common between himself and the great

anthropoids, still they were better than no company at all.

Moving leisurely, sometimes upon the ground and again among the lower

branches of the trees, gathering an occasional fruit or turning over a fallen log in

search of the larger bugs, which he still found as palatable as of old, Tarzan had

covered a mile or more when his attention was attracted by the scent of Sheeta

up-wind ahead of him.

The Beasts of Tarzan