tprints that the beasts had not been following
the two, for sometimes one was ahead of them and one behind, and again
both were in advance, or both were in the rear. It was very strange
and quite inexplicable, especially where the spoor showed where the
hyenas in the wider portions of the path had walked one on either side
of the human pair, quite close to them. Then Tarzan read in the spoor
of the smaller Gomangani a shrinking terror of the beast that brushed
his side, but in that of the old man was no sign of fear.

At first Tarzan had been solely occupied by the remarkable
juxtaposition of the spoor of Dango and Gomangani, but now his keen
eyes caught something in the spoor of the little Gomangani which
brought him to a sudden stop. It was as though, finding a letter in
the road, you suddenly had discovered in it the familiar handwriting of
a friend.

"Go-bu-balu!" exclaimed the ape-man, and at once memory flashed upon
the screen of recollection the supplicating attitude of Momaya as she
had hurled herself before him in the village of Mbonga the night
before. Instantly all was explained--the wailing and lamentation, the
pleading of the black mother, the sympathetic howling of the shes about
the fire. Little Go-bu-balu had been stolen again, and this time by
another than Tarzan. Doubtless the mother had thought that he was
again in the power of Tarzan of the Apes, and she had been beseeching
him to return her balu to her.

Yes, it was all quite plain now; but who could have stolen Go-bu-balu
this time? Tarzan wondered, and he wondered, too, about the presence of
Dango. He would investigate. The spoor was a day old and it ran
toward the north. Tarzan set out to follow it. In places it was
totally obliterated by the passage of many beasts, and where the way
was rocky, even Tarzan of the Apes was almost baffled; but there was
still the faint effluvium which clung to the human spoor, appreciable
only to such highly trained perceptive powers as were Tarzan's.

It had all happened to little Tibo very suddenly and unexpectedly
within the brief span of two suns. First had come Bukawai, the
witch-doctor--Bukawai, the unclean--with the ragged bit of flesh which
still clung to his rotting face. He had come alone and by day to the
place at the river where Momaya went daily to wash her body and that of
Tibo, her little boy. He had stepped out from behind a great bush
quite close to Momaya, frightening little Tib