allen into the hands of the Russian, it seemed that with all the
incredible speed of his fleet and agile muscles he moved at but a
snail's pace.

It was with difficulty that he kept the trail, for there were many
paths through the jungle at this point--crossing and crisscrossing,
forking and branching in all directions, and over them all had passed
natives innumerable, coming and going. The spoor of the white men was
obliterated by that of the native carriers who had followed them, and
over all was the spoor of other natives and of wild beasts.

It was most perplexing; yet Tarzan kept on assiduously, checking his
sense of sight against his sense of smell, that he might more surely
keep to the right trail. But, with all his care, night found him at a
point where he was positive that he was on the wrong trail entirely.

He knew that the pack would follow his spoor, and so he had been
careful to make it as distinct as possible, brushing often against the
vines and creepers that walled the jungle-path, and in other ways
leaving his scent-spoor plainly discernible.

As darkness settled a heavy rain set in, and there was nothing for the
baffled ape-man to do but wait in the partial shelter of a huge tree
until morning; but the coming of dawn brought no cessation of the
torrential downpour.

For a week the sun was obscured by heavy clouds, while violent rain and
wind storms obliterated the last remnants of the spoor Tarzan
constantly though vainly sought.

During all this time he saw no signs of natives, nor of his own pack,
the members of which he feared had lost his trail during the terrific
storm. As the country was strange to him, he had been unable to judge
his course accurately, since he had had neither sun by day nor moon nor
stars by night to guide him.

When the sun at last broke through the clouds in the fore-noon of the
seventh day, it looked down upon an almost frantic ape-man.

For the first time in his life, Tarzan of the Apes had been lost in the
jungle. That the experience should have befallen him at such a time
seemed cruel beyond expression. Somewhere in this savage land his wife
and son lay in the clutches of the arch-fiend Rokoff.

What hideous trials might they not have undergone during those seven
awful days that nature had thwarted him in his endeavours to locate
them? Tarzan knew the Russian, in whose power they were, so well that
he could not doubt but that the man, filled with rage th