en himself and his prey.

The ape-boy, leaping after the panther, cried aloud to the beast in an
effort to turn it from Teeka or otherwise distract its attention until
the she-ape could gain the safety of the higher branches where Sheeta
dared not go. He called the panther every opprobrious name that fell
to his tongue. He dared him to stop and do battle with him; but Sheeta
only loped on after the luscious titbit now almost within his reach.

Tarzan was not far behind and he was gaining, but the distance was so
short that he scarce hoped to overhaul the carnivore before it had
felled Teeka. In his right hand the boy swung his grass rope above his
head as he ran. He hated to chance a miss, for the distance was much
greater than he ever had cast before except in practice. It was the
full length of his grass rope which separated him from Sheeta, and yet
there was no other thing to do. He could not reach the brute's side
before it overhauled Teeka. He must chance a throw.

And just as Teeka sprang for the lower limb of a great tree, and Sheeta
rose behind her in a long, sinuous leap, the coils of the ape-boy's
grass rope shot swiftly through the air, straightening into a long thin
line as the open noose hovered for an instant above the savage head and
the snarling jaws. Then it settled--clean and true about the tawny
neck it settled, and Tarzan, with a quick twist of his rope-hand, drew
the noose taut, bracing himself for the shock when Sheeta should have
taken up the slack.

Just short of Teeka's glossy rump the cruel talons raked the air as the
rope tightened and Sheeta was brought to a sudden stop--a stop that
snapped the big beast over upon his back. Instantly Sheeta was
up--with glaring eyes, and lashing tail, and gaping jaws, from which
issued hideous cries of rage and disappointment.

He saw the ape-boy, the cause of his discomfiture, scarce forty feet
before him, and Sheeta charged.

Teeka was safe now; Tarzan saw to that by a quick glance into the tree
whose safety she had gained not an instant too soon, and Sheeta was
charging. It was useless to risk his life in idle and unequal combat
from which no good could come; but could he escape a battle with the
enraged cat? And if he was forced to fight, what chance had he to
survive? Tarzan was constrained to admit that his position was aught
but a desirable one. The trees were too far to hope to reach in time
to elude the cat. Tarzan could but stand f