tform of branches.
It was very dark now, darker even than it had been before, for
almost the entire sky was overcast by thick, black clouds.

Presently the man-beast paused, his sensitive nostrils dilating as
he sniffed the air about him. Then, with the swiftness and agility of
a cat, he leaped far outward upon a swaying branch, sprang upward
through the darkness, caught another, swung himself upon it and
then to one still higher. What could have so suddenly transformed
his matter-of-fact ascent of the giant bole to the swift and wary
action of his detour among the branches? You or I could have seen
nothing-not even the little platform that an instant before had
been just above him and which now was immediately below--but as he
swung above it we should have heard an ominous growl; and then as
the moon was momentarily uncovered, we should have seen both the
platform, dimly, and a dark mass that lay stretched upon it--a dark
mass that presently, as our eyes became accustomed to the lesser
darkness, would take the form of Sheeta, the panther.

In answer to the cat's growl, a low and equally ferocious growl
rumbled upward from the ape-man's deep chest--a growl of warning
that told the panther he was trespassing upon the other's lair; but
Sheeta was in no mood to be dispossessed. With upturned, snarling
face he glared at the brown-skinned Tarmangani above him. Very slowly
the ape-man moved inward along the branch until he was directly
above the panther. In the man's hand was the hunting knife of his
long-dead father--the weapon that had first given him his real
ascendancy over the beasts of the jungle; but he hoped not to be
forced to use it, knowing as he did that more jungle battles were
settled by hideous growling than by actual combat, the law of bluff
holding quite as good in the jungle as elsewhere--only in matters
of love and food did the great beasts ordinarily close with fangs
and talons.

Tarzan braced himself against the bole of the tree and leaned closer
toward Sheeta.

"Stealer of balus!" he cried. The panther rose to a sitting position,
his bared fangs but a few feet from the ape-man's taunting face.
Tarzan growled hideously and struck at the cat's face with his
knife. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he roared. "This is Tarzan's
lair. Go, or I will kill you."

Though he spoke in the language of the great apes of the jungle,
it is doubtful that Sheeta understood the words, though he knew
well enough that t