f being thrust through an opening in one
of the swaying huts, felt the spider-man follow her in--then once more
she was lifted by a pair of long thin arms.

Weakly she lifted her hands to strike out at the loathsome thing holding
her--then blackness poured into her brain and she knew no more.

* * * * *

For the better part of two weeks Tharn and Trakor made little progress
along the trail taken by those Ammadians who held Dylara. With the
patient stoicism of all creatures of the wild he accepted the
unavoidable delay in his plans brought on by his acquisition of the
untrained Trakor; and as the best way of lightening his burden, set out
to school the boy in the lore of the jungle.

Most of that first week was spent in acquiring the knack of using the
tree tops as a highway. Trakor, like most Cro-Magnards, was accustomed
to climbing in search of fruit and birds' nests. But when it came to
hurtling from bough to bough and tree to tree in a dizzying pathway
high above ground, he was both hesitant and doubtful.

Patiently Tharn strove to build up the youth's confidence. At first he
spent hours in developing within him that sense of balance which is the
basis for forest-top travel. Once Trakor could thread his way along a
swaying branch a hundred feet in the air without reaching wildly for a
hand-hold, Tharn undertook to teach him the grasp, swing and release
used in plunging through space from one jungle giant to the next.

At first the boy fell many times and his body was a mass of painful
bruises. But he endured the pain without complaint, returning to the
branches for more with unabated enthusiasm. Hour after hour, day after
day he strove for something approaching Tharn's expertness at the craft,
and while he knew he would never succeed in reaching the high standards
of his teacher, he was gaining confidence that eventually he would near
that mark.

Within a week he was bounding about the trees with a sure-footedness and
celerity that brought praise from his companion. He took the utmost
pleasure in challenging the jungle lord to arboreal races, and while he
never won them he came close on several occasions. Soon his confidence
passed into a cocksure attitude and he began to take long
chances--leaping twenty feet across a treeless gap to catch some narrow
limb waving in a strong breeze, or hurtling through space at the end of
a trailing vine in imminent danger of being dashed to dea