n near them. They did not know that his sharp eyes were
watching them, nor that other eyes less friendly were glaring at
them from a clump of bushes close beside the boma entrance. They
did not know these things, but Tarzan did. No more than they could
he see the creature crouching in the concealment of the foliage, yet
he knew that it was there and what it was and what its intentions,
precisely as well as though it had been lying in the open.

A slight movement of the leaves at the top of a single stem had
apprised him of the presence of a creature there, for the movement
was not that imparted by the wind. It came from pressure at the
bottom of the stem which communicates a different movement to the
leaves than does the wind passing among them, as anyone who has
lived his lifetime in the jungle well knows, and the same wind that
passed through the foliage of the bush brought to the ape-man's
sensitive nostrils indisputable evidence of the fact that Sheeta,
the panther, waited there for the two returning from the river.

They had covered half the distance to the boma entrance when Tarzan
called to them to stop. They looked in surprise in the direction
from which his voice had come to see him drop lightly to the ground
and advance toward them.

"Come slowly toward me," he called to them. "Do not run for if you
run Sheeta will charge."

They did as he bid, their faces filled with questioning wonderment.

"What do you mean?" asked the young Englishman. "Who is Sheeta?"
but for answer the ape-man suddenly hurled the carcass of Bara, the
deer, to the ground and leaped quickly toward them, his eyes upon
something in their rear; and then it was that the two turned and
learned the identity of Sheeta, for behind them was a devil-faced
cat charging rapidly toward them.

Sheeta with rising anger and suspicion had seen the ape-man leap
from the tree and approach the quarry. His life's experiences backed
by instinct told him that the Tarmangani was about to rob him of
his prey and as Sheeta was hungry, he had no intention of being
thus easily deprived of the flesh he already considered his own.

The girl stifled an involuntary scream as she saw the proximity
of the fanged fury bearing down upon them. She shrank close to the
man and clung to him and all unarmed and defenseless as he was, the
Englishman pushed her behind him and shielding her with his body,
stood squarely in the face of the panther's charge. Tarzan noted
the