and nearer. His face was
partly averted, but his keen gray eyes never left those of Taug, and as
he came, his growls increased in depth and volume.

Taug rose upon his short legs, bristling. His fighting fangs were
bared. He, too, sidled, stiff-legged, and growled.

"Teeka is Tarzan's," said the ape-man, in the low gutturals of the
great anthropoids.

"Teeka is Taug's," replied the bull ape.

Thaka and Numgo and Gunto, disturbed by the growlings of the two young
bulls, looked up half apathetic, half interested. They were sleepy,
but they sensed a fight. It would break the monotony of the humdrum
jungle life they led.

Coiled about his shoulders was Tarzan's long grass rope, in his hand
was the hunting knife of the long-dead father he had never known. In
Taug's little brain lay a great respect for the shiny bit of sharp
metal which the ape-boy knew so well how to use. With it had he slain
Tublat, his fierce foster father, and Bolgani, the gorilla. Taug knew
these things, and so he came warily, circling about Tarzan in search of
an opening. The latter, made cautious because of his lesser bulk and
the inferiority of his natural armament, followed similar tactics.

For a time it seemed that the altercation would follow the way of the
majority of such differences between members of the tribe and that one
of them would finally lose interest and wander off to prosecute some
other line of endeavor. Such might have been the end of it had the
CASUS BELLI been other than it was; but Teeka was flattered at the
attention that was being drawn to her and by the fact that these two
young bulls were contemplating battle on her account. Such a thing
never before had occurred in Teeka's brief life. She had seen other
bulls battling for other and older shes, and in the depth of her wild
little heart she had longed for the day when the jungle grasses would
be reddened with the blood of mortal combat for her fair sake.

So now she squatted upon her haunches and insulted both her admirers
impartially. She hurled taunts at them for their cowardice, and called
them vile names, such as Histah, the snake, and Dango, the hyena. She
threatened to call Mumga to chastise them with a stick--Mumga, who was
so old that she could no longer climb and so toothless that she was
forced to confine her diet almost exclusively to bananas and grub-worms.

The apes who were watching heard and laughed. Taug was infuriated. He
made a sudden