de while the indifferent ape-man passed them on his lordly way.
A moment later they were tearing at the remains of the zebra.

Back to the reeds went Tarzan, and through them toward the river. A
herd of buffalo, startled by his approach, rose ready to charge or to
fly. A great bull pawed the ground and bellowed as his bloodshot eyes
discovered the intruder; but the ape-man passed across their front as
though ignorant of their existence. The bull's bellowing lessened to a
low rumbling, he turned and scraped a horde of flies from his side with
his muzzle, cast a final glance at the ape-man and resumed his feeding.
His numerous family either followed his example or stood gazing after
Tarzan in mild-eyed curiosity, until the opposite reeds swallowed him
from view.

At the river, Tarzan drank his fill and bathed. During the heat of the
day he lay up under the shade of a tree near the ruins of his burned
barns. His eyes wandered out across the plain toward the forest, and a
longing for the pleasures of its mysterious depths possessed his
thoughts for a considerable time. With the next sun he would cross the
open and enter the forest! There was no hurry--there lay before him an
endless vista of tomorrows with naught to fill them but the satisfying
of the appetites and caprices of the moment.

The ape-man's mind was untroubled by regret for the past, or aspiration
for the future. He could lie at full length along a swaying branch,
stretching his giant limbs, and luxuriating in the blessed peace of
utter thoughtlessness, without an apprehension or a worry to sap his
nervous energy and rob him of his peace of mind. Recalling only dimly
any other existence, the ape-man was happy. Lord Greystoke had ceased
to exist.

For several hours Tarzan lolled upon his swaying, leafy couch until
once again hunger and thirst suggested an excursion. Stretching lazily
he dropped to the ground and moved slowly toward the river. The game
trail down which he walked had become by ages of use a deep, narrow
trench, its walls topped on either side by impenetrable thicket and
dense-growing trees closely interwoven with thick-stemmed creepers and
lesser vines inextricably matted into two solid ramparts of vegetation.
Tarzan had almost reached the point where the trail debouched upon the
open river bottom when he saw a family of lions approaching along the
path from the direction of the river. The ape-man counted seven--a
male and two lio