ey
experienced considerable difficulty in making an entrance against the
combined current and ebb tide, but by taking advantage of eddies close
in to shore they came about dusk to a point nearly opposite the spot
where they had left the pack asleep.

Making the craft fast to an overhanging bough, the two made their way
into the jungle, presently coming upon some of the apes feeding upon
fruit a little beyond the reeds where the buffalo had fallen. Sheeta
was not anywhere to be seen, nor did he return that night, so that
Tarzan came to believe that he had wandered away in search of his own
kind.

Early the next morning the ape-man led his band down to the river, and
as he walked he gave vent to a series of shrill cries. Presently from
a great distance and faintly there came an answering scream, and a
half-hour later the lithe form of Sheeta bounded into view where the
others of the pack were clambering gingerly into the canoe.

The great beast, with arched back and purring like a contented tabby,
rubbed his sides against the ape-man, and then at a word from the
latter sprang lightly to his former place in the bow of the dugout.

When all were in place it was discovered that two of the apes of Akut
were missing, and though both the king ape and Tarzan called to them
for the better part of an hour, there was no response, and finally the
boat put off without them. As it happened that the two missing ones
were the very same who had evinced the least desire to accompany the
expedition from the island, and had suffered the most from fright
during the voyage, Tarzan was quite sure that they had absented
themselves purposely rather than again enter the canoe.

As the party were putting in for the shore shortly after noon to search
for food a slender, naked savage watched them for a moment from behind
the dense screen of verdure which lined the river's bank, then he
melted away up-stream before any of those in the canoe discovered him.

Like a deer he bounded along the narrow trail until, filled with the
excitement of his news, he burst into a native village several miles
above the point at which Tarzan and his pack had stopped to hunt.

"Another white man is coming!" he cried to the chief who squatted
before the entrance to his circular hut. "Another white man, and with
him are many warriors. They come in a great war-canoe to kill and rob
as did the black-bearded one who has just left us."

Kaviri leaped to his