Tarzan. Complete Collection

Doc looked and saw a little monkey solemnly surveying them from the branch of a nearby tree. Presently it began to chatter and a moment later it was joined by a second and then a third little monkey. As the boys approached the monkeys retreated, still chattering and scolding. They were cute little fellows and Dick and Doc followed in an effort to get closer, and, all the time, more and more monkeys appeared. They ran through the trees, jumping from branch to branch; skipping about, jabbering excitedly.

"If my cousin, Tarzan of the Apes, were here, he'd know just what they were saying," said Dick.

"Let's get him to teach us," suggested Doc. "Wouldn't it be fun to be able to talk to the animals, the way he does? Gee! I wish they'd let us get a little closer."

On and on the boys went, their whole attention absorbed by the antics of the little monkeys; forgetting time and distance, trains, passengers; forgetting all the world in this wonderful experience of seeing hundreds of real, live monkeys living their own natural life in the jungle, just as their forefathers had lived for ages and ages. How tame and uninteresting and pathetic seemed the poor little monkeys that they had seen in zoos. The boys passed several little trails ru

Perhaps they were not very far from the train. They did not think about it at once, for their minds were occupied with more interesting things than trains. Presently, however, as they followed the winding of the broad game trail, laughing at the antics of the monkeys and trying to make friends with them, a still, small voice seemed to whisper something into the ear of Dick. It was that old spoilsport, Conscience, and what it said was: "Better start back! Better start back!" Dick glanced at his watch.

"Gee!" he exclaimed. "Look what time it is! We'd better start back."

And then Doc looked at his watch. "Golly!" he cried; "I'll say we ought to start back, it's almost di

"Oh, not very far," replied Dick, but his tone was not very positive.

"Say, I'll bet it would be great in here at night," cried Doc.

Just at that instant, from the heart of the jungle, a sound broke the peace of the forest—a terrible sound that started with a coughing noise and grew in volume until it became a terrific roar that made the ground tremble. Instantly the little monkeys disappeared as though by magic and a silence, more fearful than the awful voice, settled upon the dark and gloomy wood. Instinctively the boys drew close together, looking fearfully in the direction from which that fearsome sound had come. They were brave boys; but brave men tremble when that voice breaks the silence of an African night.

Little wonder, then, that they turned and fled into the direction from which they had come, away from the author of that rumbling roar.

And, still ru

CHAPTER 2

Numa, the lion, hunted through the jungle primeval. He was not ravenously hungry, as only the night before he had finished devouring the kill he had made two days ago. However, it would do no harm to rove the jungle for a few hours and mark down a new prey even before the pangs of hunger became sharp. As he moved majestically along the familiar game trail, he made no effort to hide his presence, for was he not the king of beasts? Who was there to dispute his supreme power? Of whom need he be afraid?

Perhaps these very thoughts were in the mind of Numa, when, borne upon the air that moved down the tu

"I didn't think we'd come this far," he said. "Do you suppose we passed the little path leading to the railway, without seeing it?"

"I don't know," replied Dick, "but it certainly seems as though we had come back a whole lot further than we went in. But then, of course, you said it would be great to spend the night in here," he added.

"Well, it would," insisted Doc; "but it wouldn't be very nice to have the train go off and leave us here, forever, and that's just what it may do, if we don't get back to it pretty soon. Let's go on a little way, then if we don't find the path, we'll turn around and go back and try the other fork of the trail."

"What do you suppose made that noise?" asked Dick, presently, as they walked along, peering anxiously into the dense wall of jungle for the opening that they hoped would lead them back to the train. It was the first time that either of them had mentioned the cause of their fright; partly because they had been too busy ru

"Sounded like a lion," said Doc.

"That's what I thought," said Dick.

"Why didn't you wait and see then?" demanded his cousin. "On the train this morning, you said you'd like to see a real lion."

"I didn't see you waiting," Dick shot back. "I guess you were afraid, all right. I never saw anyone run so fast in my life."

"I had to, to keep up with you," replied Doc. "Anyhow, I hadn't lost a lion. Who wants an old lion, anyway?"

"I guess yon don't, fraidy-cat."

"Fraidy-cat nothing," replied Doc. "I'm not afraid of any old lion. All you got to do is look 'em right in the eye, an'—"