Tarzan. Complete Collection

"I suppose if we kept to the trees with her, even if she couldn't go very fast, they wouldn't have any way of following our trail," said Doc. "Well, anyway," he added with a sigh, "we got to do it whether we get caught or not. We can't leave her with them and that's all there is to it."

"I'll tell you another thing, Doc," said his cousin; "we've got to eat. If we don't we'll be so weak we shan't be able to get out of here ourselves, let alone carrying the girl along with us. That's something to think about, too!"

"Maybe we can find some more of that nice breakfast fruit we had this morning," said Doc, making a wry face.

"What we need is meat," stated Dick, emphatically. "Being a vegetarian may be all right for some folks but it doesn't go for an Englishman."

"Nor for an American either," said Doc. "Ham or bacon for breakfast—that's me."

"Don't talk about such things," begged Dick. "Golly! I can feel my mouth water."

"We had a nurse once that wanted us to live on raw carrots and turnips," said Doc; "but Dad said it would be cheaper to order a bale of alfalfa and put mangers in the dining room. She got sore, then, and quit. But I agreed with Dad."

"Say," exclaimed Dick, "I've got an idea. They are evidently going to camp here until morning. What do you say we go and hunt for food and then come back? It doesn't look as though they were going to kill her right away, because if they were they wouldn't be building that shelter for her."

"How do you know it's for her?" asked Doc doubtfully.

"It must be. It's only large enough for one," was Dick's logical explanation.

"That's right," admitted Doc. "Let's start. It may not be so easy to find the sort of food we want."

"And it may not be so easy to kill it after we do find it."

"I can do better with my bow and arrows than I could a few days ago," Doc reminded him, "and you are pretty keen with your spear."

"All right, come on!"

The boys started off at right angles to the trail directly into the forest. Doc drew his hunting knife and cut pieces of bark from the trees through which they passed. He did it as silently as he could.

"What are you doing?" demanded Dick, who was in the lead and had chanced to turn to see what was delaying his cousin.

"I'm blazing our trail so that we can find our way back again," explained Doc.

"Good old Doc!" exclaimed Dick. "I'll say you use your old bean for something besides a hair farm, and how!"

They had proceeded for about half an hour without discovering the slightest sign of game when Dick came to a sudden halt and simultaneously gestured warningly to Doc.

When Dick then pointed ahead, Doc crept cautiously forward and peered across Dick's shoulder.

Just ahead of them they saw the small brook upon which the twenty had made their camp. Further down its course and in a little opening upon the bank stood a small antelope, drinking.

"It's too far for my spear," whispered Dick, "and anyway there is too much foliage around me. I could not get room for a good throw. You'd better try to get it with your bow and arrow."

"It's an awful long shot," said Doc, dubiously, "and, gee, how I should hate to miss."

"Do you suppose we can get any closer?"

Doc thought a moment

"Let's try."

"You go ahead then," said Dick. "I'll wait here. Two of us will make more noise than one."

"Pray for me," whispered Doc, as he started carefully forward.

Leaving his spear behind with Dick, Doc moved cautiously toward the antelope, his bow and an arrow ready for instant use. A gentle breeze that stirred the foliage of the forest blew toward him from the direction of the quarry, carrying his scent spoor away from the sensitive nostrils of the nervous, timid animal.

Closer and closer he crept—a moment more and he would be within easy range. He strove to keep his nerves under control, so much depended upon the accuracy of his aim, upon his stealth, upon his cu

Now he was ready! He braced himself against the bole of a great tree, his feet firmly planted upon to adjacent branches. Through an opening in the foliage he could see the antelope below him, only a few yards away. He fitted the arrow and at the same instant the antelope leaped into the air in a sudden, swift bound of fright.

Simultaneously the cause of terror burst from a clump of nearby bushes—a frightful, gnarled man swinging a great cudgel about his head. And in the instant that he appeared, in the same instant that the antelope took its first leap for safety, the man-thing hurled the cudgel.

Straight to its mark flew the heavy missile, striking the fleeing animal a terrific blow that felled it, half stu

At first Doc and Dick were too surprised to do more than stand and stare at the creature who had robbed them of their meat, but presently anger and resentment made themselves apparent. Just as the primitive hunter would have felt under like circumstance, so these two boys felt—that they had been robbed of what rightfully belonged to them.

Perhaps under different conditions they would have realized that the antelope was as much the property of the beast-man as it was their property—even more so since he had slain it—but as it was they reasoned as the primitive man might have reasoned and they reacted quite in the same way that he might have reacted; that is that they wanted to take the kill away from the killer nor were they deterred by any fine ethical considerations from doing so by any means that lay in their power. The thing that deterred them was fear—fear that the beast-man would kill them in defense of his meat.

Thus easily did the veneer of civilization fall away from these two boys the moment they were faced by the necessity of sustaining life in competition with the savage creatures of primitive Nature. Doc, standing there with his arrow trained upon the priest of the Flaming God, his heart filled with rage and disappointment and hate, had suddenly reverted a hundred thousand years and lived again an instant in the life of some long dead, primordial ancestor.

Aiming at the man's back, just below his left shoulder, Doc bent his bow and at the same instant Dick, who had followed him, laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"Don't!" whispered Dick. "I know how you feel, but—we mustn't do that; not until we are forced to it."

Doc lowered the point of his arrow, standing silent for a moment. "I suppose you are right," he said; "but, gee! you don't know how mad that made me—just as I was going to shoot, too."

"Listen," whispered Dick, "I've got a scheme."

CHAPTER SIX—THE TWINS' PLAN

Bending closer to Doc's ear Dick whispered his plan, and as Doc listened his face brightened, his lips stretching into a broad grin.

"Gee!" he said. "That's a great idea, but—do you suppose it will work?"

"Sure it will," Dick assured him; "but we got to hurry. Three of 'em went out to hunt for food—that's plain enough now—and we don't want one of the others to happen along before we get through. You sneak around into that big tree over there and I'll take the one just beyond. We've got to be on the other side of him so that he'll beat it toward his camp."