Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 156: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TARZAN AND THE ANT-MEN, 185 And Obebe drew the knife at his side and lunged it again and again into the creature that had leaped upon him, and when he knew that life was extinct he stood proudly ‘erect and, dragging the body after him, stepped out of his hut into the light of the moon and the fires. | “Come, my people!” he cried. ‘“ You have nothing to fear; for 1, Obebe, your chief, have slain the River Devil with my own hands,” and then he looked down at the thing trailing behind him, and gave a gasp, and sat down.suddenly in the dust of the village street. For the body at his heels was that of Khamis, the witch doctor. _ His people came, and when they saw what had happened they said nothing, but looked terrified. Obebe examined his hut and the ground around it. He took several warriors and searched the village. The stranger had departed. They went to the gates. These were closed, but in the dust before them was the imprint of naked feet—the naked feet of a white man. Then Obebe came back to his hut, where his frightened people stood waiting him. ‘“‘ Khamis was mistaken,” he said. “ The creature was not the River Devil. It must have been the man that I have heard called Tarzan of the Apes, for only he could hurl Khamis so high above. his head that he would fall through the roof of a hut, and only he could pass unaided over our gates.” CHAPTER XXIII THE SUBTLEST VIBRATION, ® WAZIRI, returning from the village mi of Obebe the cannibal, encountered ~ @ hungry python on the trail. In making a wide and discreet detour through the jungle, he discovered a human skeleton. This find, in itself, was nothing remark-_ able. Many bones lie alongside savage trails in Africa. But this skeleton caused him to pause. It was that of a child. Yet this alone was not enough to delay a warrior hastening through an unfriendly country back toward his own people. But Usula, the spearman, had heard 10 A strange tales in the village of Obebe the cannibal where a vague hint had brought him im search of his beloved master, the Big Bwana. Obebe had promptly denied that he had seen or heard anything of the giant white man, Tarzan of the Apes. He spoke much and argumentatively of a River Devil, instead. | From other members of the tribe, how- ever, the Waziri learned that the terrible creature whom the chief foolishly tried to torture had left in: the dust the footprints of a white man, lacking the callouses and the prehensile, outspread toes of the na- tives. Usula, therefore, was on the look- out for any clew that would fit the story of Obebe, or give that cannibal chieftain the he. When he saw the small skeleton near the trail he recalled the story of the miss- ing Uhha; poked among the bones with the blade of his spear and retrieved a cop- per necklace which a woman of the cannibal tribe had described as belonging to the daughter of the ill-fated witch doctor. And then Usula knew that Obebe had lied. A River Devil leaves behind no trace of the human victim. | So now the warrior renewed his eager search for the white man who had pressed straight, firm toes in the dust of Obebe’s village path. This identification, coupled with the tale of his terrific strength, pointed to none other than Tarzan of the Apes. Usula sought his missing master with all the hunting skill of his meat eating tribe. ‘He climbed trees to take observations of the wide veldt where grazed the antelope herds. If, miles away, he saw a flurried move- ment among the grazing animals he made his way there. But always the alarm had | been from some” beast of prey, perhaps a hunting leopard, or cheetah, or mayhap only © the scent of lion brought down on the. wind. And ever the warrior cast a raging glance aloft at the arching sky to where the vul- tures moved in their sentinel circles. He had a sullen, bitter fear of seeing these slow, feathery windings turn into an aerial funnel that should touch the earth where Tarzan of the Apes might lie helpless or even beyond help. : comiicloooks com