I. A DIABOLICAL SCHEME
DR. BRACKEN suavely bowed his Florida cracker patient out of his dispensary. It was in the smaller right wing of his rambling ancestral home on a hummock in the Everglades, near the Gulf of Mexico and five miles from Citrus Crossing.

The doctor cursed under his breath as a sudden uproar came from the larger right wing of the house, directly behind him. This wing, a place double-locked and forbidden even to his two old colored servants, had no entrance save through a narrow passageway that connected it with his private office in the smaller wing.

So far as his servants, Aunt Jenny and Uncle Henry, were concerned, a lock was superfluous. The muffled animal-like sounds that came from it were so strange and unearthly that they regarded them with superstitious awe.

As he closed the door behind his patient it seemed that a mask suddenly slipped from the doctor's face, so swift and horrible was the change that came over his features. He had been smiling and suave, but as be turned away from the door his demeanor was more like that of a frenzied madman. His teeth, bared like those of a jungle beast at bay, gleamed white and menacing against the iron-gray of his closely cropped Vandyke. His small, deep-set eyes burned malevolently, madly.

Fishing a bunch of keys from his pocket, be opened the door to the narrow passageway, pressed a switch that flooded it with light, and entered, locking it behind him. The roars were louder now. At the end of the passageway he used another key to open a second door, and stepped into the room beyond, pressing a second switch as he did so. The yellow rays of a bulb overhead revealed the stoutly: barred cages that housed his private menagerie within soundproofed walls.

In the cage at his elbow an African leopard snarled menacingly. Its next-door neighbor, a South American jaguar, padded silently back and forth with head hanging low and slavering jowls slightly parted. In the adjacent cage, the bars of which had been reenforced with powerful wire meshwork, a huge python was coiled complacently around a whitewashed tree trunk, its shimmering folds resting on the shortened stumps of the limbs. Beside this was the cage of Malik, the old and nearly toothless lion.

The glittering eyes of the doctor swept the room, seeking the cause of the disturbance. They paused for a moment at the cage of Tichuk, the surly old male chimpanzee, who was squatting on his shelf, striving to look innocent. But the Brazilian spider monkeys in the cage at Tichuk's left were leaping and skipping about and chattering excitedly in a manner that showed all too plainly where the trouble had centered.

In two cages which adjoined each other and that of Tichuk were two creatures: Chicma, an old female chimpanzee, and a naked boy sixteen years of age. He was a handsome, superbly muscled lad, with a straight, athletic figure, broad shoulders, narrow hips, and the features of a Greek god, crowned by a tumbled mass of auburn curls. Several bloody scratches stood out against the white of his face and arms, and one hand still clutched a tuft of chimpanzee hair which he made no effort to conceal.

"Fighting through the bars with Tichuk again," muttered the doctor. He reached for a whip hanging on a near-by peg. Then withdrew his hand. "Won't punish him this time," he growled to himself. "Tomorrow he must perform the act of vengeance for which I have trained him. Then he will leave this place forever. And I will be compensated for my years of bitterness and suffering."

Glancing at his watch, the doctor saw that it was nearly feeding time. He went into the cooler and emerged a moment later. Growls, snarls, chatterings, and rending sounds marked his, progress.

At last Chicma, the female chimpanzee, was given bet ration of bread and lettuce; but to the omnivorous manchild's ration a pound of raw beef was added.

This boy, the innocent victim of the doctor's insane hatred for a woman, had never seen a human being other than the physician. Nor had he glimpsed any more of the outside world than might be observed through the small, high windows of the menagerie, or above the tall stockade just outside it, where he was exercised.

Dr. Bracken had loved the boy's mother, Georgia Adams, a titian-haired Southern beauty, with a fiery passion of which few men are capable. A sudden declaration before his departure on a trip to Africa had won what he thought was a promise from her-a half-hearted assent she had evidently regretted the moment be had gone; but it was the one thing on which he had counted during all his weary months of tramping in the jungles. Her face had smiled at him in the light of many a camp fire; her voice had soothed his troubled sleep as he lay in his net-covered hammock while fierce beasts of prey roamed just outside the bona. For him the red-gold sunsets had reflected the glory of her titian hair. Bits of the blue vault of heaven visible at times through rents in the forest canopy, had hinted of the more wondrous blue of her eyes.

But he had returned to America only to have the cup of happiness dashed rudely from his lips-for she had married Harry Trevor.

True, she had told him, when they had a few moments alone, of writing a letter breaking the engagement only a week after his departure. He had accepted the statement politely, yet deep in his heart he doubted it. She had broken faith, and in his estimation a woman capable of that was capable of anything. The letter, if indeed there had been a letter, had never reached him.

So love had turned to hate-an abnormally intense hate that filled his waking hours and made his nights restless and hideous-a passionate, unreasoning hate that engendered a desire which soon became a fixed purpose and the sole end toward which he planned and strove-revenge.

But Dr. Bracken's warped mind had cunningly pretended friendship, so cunningly that he served the Trevors as their family physician in Florida. And the birth of a son and heir gave him his long-awaited opportunity for a revenge which would be no trifling retribution from which Georgia Trevor would soon recover.

The kidnaping of the day-old boy had been ridiculously easy. At first the doctor's diabolical plan had been to mutilate and cripple the child, turn his face into a hideous monstrosity, and return him, to be a living curse to his parents. But an event had occurred in the menagerie which changed his plans and gave him the germ of an even more diabolical scheme.

For the male chimpanzee, Tichuk, at that time caged with his mate Chicma, had slain their little one in a fit of fury and was attacking her, when the doctor returned with the stolen baby. Dr. Bracken had quieted both chimpanzees with hypodermics and removed the unconscious Tichuk to another cage. Then, a terrible smile upon his face; he had skinned the baby chimpanzee, treated its hide with an odorless preservative-and sewed the cotton-padded skin about the human baby. As Chicma came out of her drugged sleep he placed the child in her arms.

The chimpanzee, dazed and foggy of perception, had sniffed the hairy hide of her own child. She recognized the scent and feel; yet the tensely waiting doctor, club and whip in hand, saw her hesitate in puzzlement, as if on the verge of flinging away this somehow suspiciously changed child of hers. But nature and mother-instinct conquered, and she fed the hungry infant.

Filled with a fierce exultation, the doctor stole away, muttering:

"What a scheme! The body of a man and the mind of an ape. And I would have made a physical monster of him, but with a clear mind. She would not have recognized him-might not have acknowledged him; but now, with features unchanged, she can't deny him-and when she has seen she will die-die by the hand of her own son. I will teach him to slay. Only two words of the human language, other than his name and the names of these beasts, shall he know: 'Mother,' and 'Kill!'"

Now, as the demented physician looked at the sixteen-year-old ape-boy, a grin of triumph overspread his satanic features, for the awful climax of his revenge was nearly at hand.

The titian-haired woman who was the object of his hatred had come very near to dying, and thus cheating him of his full measure of vengeance, shortly after she learned that her child had been stolen. But Dr. Bracken had stood between her and death, fending off the scythe of the Grim Reaper.

For fourteen years Georgia Trevor had been an invalid-constantly under his care. Dr. Bracken had never let her lose hope of the child's return. Then her husband, who had, meanwhile inherited the enormous fortune of his father, had purchased a palatial yacht and taken her on a two-year cruise.

Only the day before Georgia Trevor and her husband had returned to Citrus Crossing; and the doctor had planned a clever coup; a faked telegram to get the husband away from the louse, that he might consummate the revenge for which he had waited so long, and for which he had trained the boy from babyhood.

Dr. Bracken, who had a liking for things oriental, had named the boy "Jan," after Jan ibn Jan who, in Arabic legends, was Sultan of the Evil Jinn. A truly demoniac name--the choice of a diabolical mind.

As the raw meat was thrown to him, Jan who was a perfect mimic, seized it with a snarl as he had seen the carnivora seize theirs. While the doctor watched, seated in his chair, with a long black stogie going, the lad retired, growling, to a corner of his cage. First he ate the meat; then he munched a few lettuce leaves. The rest of his rations he passed through the bars to his foster-mother.

When Jan had finished his meal, the doctor arose, took his whip from the peg, and opened the doors of their cages. Then he shouted: "Jan! Chicma!" and whistled as if he were calling a dog. The boy and chimpanzee came out.

The doctor walked to a door which had been cut in the end of the menagerie wing a number of years before, and opened it. While he fumbled with the latch, the imitative lad, unobserved, opened the catch of the lion's cage, leaving the door slightly ajar. Then he and the chimpanzee obediently followed the doctor out of the building into a stockade with a twelve-foot board fence around it. In this stockade were various exercizing devices-a trapeze parallel bars, a thick rope for climbing, and a suspended dummy dressed like a woman, with titian hair.

For some time the boy and ape amused themselves by swinging on the trapeze and rope. Then they performed various antics on the parallel bars.

Presently the doctor called them down from the bars. Walking to the dummy of the red-haired woman, he shook it savagely and said:

"Mother! Kill!"

Instantly the boy and ape charged the dummy, biting and tearing with mimic ferocity, the ape snarling and growling, but the boy, between his own snarls and growls, crying: "Mother! Kill!"

Both boy and ape always enjoyed this mimic fight which ended their afternoon exercises, and were loath to leave off when the doctor whistled to them.

But before he could summon them a second time there came a terrific growl from the doorway behind them. Turning, he beheld Malik, the old lion, just emerging from the door. With upraised whip he tried to frighten the beast into returning to its cage, but it snarled and raised a huge paw menacingly.

He flicked the lion on the nose, and it backed up with a growl. Again be stung the tender nose, and the lion slunk, snarling, back into the house. Here it was necessary once more to use the lash in order to get the stubborn feline to enter the cage. When the beast was inside, the doctor shut and fastened the door, and with a sigh of relief took his handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his dripping face.

But his look of relief was instantly supplanted by one of fierce anger as he realized that it must have been Jan who opened the catch of that cage door. Well, Jan must be taught a lesson. He should receive a whipping that he would not soon forget.

Gripping his whip more tightly and frowning thunderously, the doctor strode menacingly through the door. But after one look around the stockade he gasped in astonishment.

Jan and Chicma were gone!

At the first growl of the lion from the doorway, Chicma, who had an intense hereditary fear of the king of beasts, ran, and seizing the end of the climbing rope swung high in the air. At the end of her swing she was only a few feet from the top of the fence which surrounded the stockade. Letting go of the rope, and still carried onward by the momentum of her swing, she caught the top of the fence with both forepaws, drew herself up, and dropped to the ground on the other side.

Jan was not nearly so frightened by the growl of the lion. But he was at the imitative age, and the beast that had just gone over the fence was, so far as his knowledge went, his parent. Fully as agile as the chimpanzee and nearly as strong, it was easy for him to swing up onto. the fence and follow.

Still thoroughly frightened, she was standing fifty feet away from the fence in a patch of saw palmettos, bouncing up and down and calling to him in the language of the chimpanzees-the only language Jan fully understood:

"Come, come! Hurry, or Malik the Terrible One will eat you!"

As soon as his feet struck the ground she scampered off through the palmettos, swinging along on hind toes and foreknuckles. Jan, who had never traveled for any great distance, followed, imitating her peculiar gait for a while, but presently found that he could keep up with her much better by traveling on only two legs, as the doctor traveled.

He was without clothing of any kind, and the saw-edged leaves cruelly lacerated his tender skin, so he was soon a mass of bloody scratches. His feet, bruised and cut by sticks and sharp stones, left spots of red on the ground. But all of these hurts only served to accelerate his speed. He imagined that the shrubs were angry with him for some unknown reason, and, like Dr. Bracken with his whip, were punishing him. He must get away from them, as Chicma was doing.

They crossed a hummock on which a few tall, gaunt, long-needle pines stood like silent sentinels. Beyond this the ground became marshy, so they were sometimes wading ankle-deep in muck, sometimes sunk to the armpits in mud water, and sub-aqueous vegetation.

This was Jan's first sight of the outside world, and despite the hurts he was getting, he was thrilled immeasurably Freedom-the only condition that makes life tolerable and desirable to men who have spirit-was his for the first time. It went to his head like strong wine. He shouted-a wordless, triumphant roar, voicing the exuberance of his feelings.

Everywhere about him were new sights smells and sounds. With the soft mud oozing up between his toes, the warm water splashing around his legs, and the hot sun beating mercilessly down on his tousled red head and bare body, he strode happily onward.

Presently they came to another hummock, on which grew several wild orange trees. Chicma sprang into one of these and began to regale herself with the highly acid fruit, and Jan followed her example.

The sun was low on the western horizon when they came to a forest of cypress and water oaks, most of which were standing in the water. They were heavily draped with Spanish moss and Jan, who was wont to personalize everything, compared the bearded trees with the bearded doctor, and heartily disliked them for the similarity.

Scarcely had they entered the shady depths ere Jan heard, far off in the direction whence they had come a weird sound that sent gooseflesh crawling all over his body.

Chicma heard it, too, and although she had been traveling slowly before, redoubled her speed, urging Jan in her queer chimpanzee gutturals to hurry after her. Jan had heard similar sounds before, and they had always, caused the gooseflesh to come up on his skin even though he had no idea that they were the baying of bloodhounds trailing some luckless Negro who was attempting to escape from the convict camp.

Chicma sensed that the creatures were on their trail, so she sprang into a tree, calling to Jan to follow her, just as two huge bloodhounds, their quarry in sight, plunged forward with eager barks to seize them.

For a moment Jan stood, looking curiously at the advancing creatures. Then he turned, and with a dexterous leap, caught one of the lower branches of a water oak. Swinging his lithe body up into a tree, he was climbing, and watching the dogs, now leaping and barking beneath him, when he was startled by a thunderous growl just above him.

By this time the darkness had deepened to such an extent that he could not see clearly, but as he glanced fearfully upward, he beheld a tremendous black bulk, from which two gleaming, phosphorescent eyes looked down at him.

Then a huge paw tipped with sharp, sickle-like claws, swung for his upturned face.

II. IN THE BEARDED FOREST
As SOON As he discovered that Jan and Chicma were not in the stockade, Dr. Bracken realized that they must, somehow, have got over the fence. Although he was a wiry and powerful man, the doctor was unable to leap high enough to grasp the top of the twelve foot barrier that confronted him, nor did Chicma's method occur to him.

To have Jan seen at large with one of his chimpanzees would mean the destruction, of all his plans, and perhaps of himself. Lynchings were not unknown, and the monstrous crime he had committed would arouse these people to a killing frenzy.

He dashed around the house to where the stockade jutted out from the menagerie. Here his trained hunter's eye quickly found the tracks where Jan and Chicma had alighted, and he hurried away on the trail, feeling confident of being able to soon overtake his fleeing quarry. He smiled when he saw the spots of blood mingled with the boy's footprints, for he believed that the lad would not long endure the pain of attempting to escape.

He crossed the stretch of saw palmetto and the pinecrested hummock with speed and confidence, but when he entered the marsh on the other side he lost the trail time and again where the tracks were concealed under water, and only found it by repeated circling and searching. This took time, and time, to him was very precious, for he knew that while he was floundering about, there in the muck and water, his quarry was getting farther away.

After about a half hour he decided that he would save time in the end by going back and borrowing a pair of bloodhounds from the sheriff.

He made the excuse that one of his apes had escaped; but it was with great difficulty that he dissuaded the sheriff from accompanying him on the hunt.

The hounds made much swifter progress than the doctor, so much so that they were soon out of sight, and he was able to follow them only by the sound of their baying.

He had traveled a considerable distance into the marsh when he met a Seminole Indian named Pete Little, whom he had often seen around Citrus Crossing.

"You make big hunt?" the Indian asked.

"Yes. One of my apes got away."

"I seen it," said Pete, and cast a look at the doctor that was full of meaning. "Red-head boy with it, about sixteen, seventeen year old."

"Yes?"

"Mrs. Trevor, she's red-headed. Her baby boy was stole sixteen year ago."

"And-"

"I poor. You rich. For thousand dollar I forget."

"I think that can be arranged," said the doctor, his face suddenly gone pale. His perfectly controlled features betrayed no other sign of his emotion. He added suddenly, with feigned terror: "Look there, behind you! A moccasin!"

At the sound of that dread word, the Indian turned. He saw no moccasin, but realized too late that he had been tricked. There was a sharp report, a stinging pain that shot through his left side like the searing of a hot iron-and oblivion. As he pitched forward on his face in the muck, the doctor holstered his smoking forty-five, kicked viciously at the prostrate form, and hurried on after the baying bloodhounds, whose distant cries had suddenly changed to fighting growls.

III. JAN'S FIRST FIGHT
As THE sickle-like claws of the big creature above him swung for his face, Jan dodged and hastily scuttled out on the limb. But the cornered black bear was not to be so easily dismissed. With a blood-curdling roar, it plunged down after the naked youth. At this, the blood-hounds below increased their clamor, leaping and barking with redoubled fury.

But the limb that Jan occupied, and onto which the beast had suddenly flung itself, was not equal to the combined weight of boy and brute, and gave way with a resounding crack.

Clutching wildly in mid-air, Jan grasped the tip of a branch which projected from an adjoining tree. It sagged with his weight, but did not break, and with his ape-like agility it was not difficult for him to quickly scramble to a less precarious position beside the trunk.

The bear; meanwhile, crashed to the ground, where it was instantly set upon by the dogs. A thud, and a series of plaintive yelps from one of them indicated that the creature, despite its fall was able to give a good account of itself. A medley of fierce barking, snarling and growling followed. But the bear, harassed by the dogs but not particularly fearful of them, lumbered away through the dark forest, crashing through the underbrush and splashing through the pools. Presently the sounds of its movements died away, and there drifted to Jan only the barking of the hounds, which were evidently still worrying their quarry.

Then it was that a new sound came to the alert ears of the young fugitive-the sound of a man, crashing and splashing among the trees. Looking in the direction of the sound, Jan saw a bright light moving through the forest.

As he was watching the approach of the man with mingled curiosity and fear, Chicma suddenly swung herself into the tree beside him.

"Come," she barked, "or Cruel One will get us! Follow me!"

Jan understood that by "Cruel One," she meant Dr. Bracken. All the occupants of their small menagerie world had been similarly named to him by his foster mother. The lion was "Terrible One," the jaguar "Fierce One," the snake "Sleepy One," and the monkeys "Chattering Ones," words which would have been nothing more than guttural grunts and barks to anyone else, but each of which had a distinct meaning for Jan.

Frightened at the very mention of Dr. Bracken, Jan hurried after the chimpanzee, as she swung from tree to tree, taking a direction opposite that of the hounds and the great beast they were harrying.

Presently, as they moved away among the cool, leafy branches, the sounds made by the doctor died away, and his flashlight was no longer visible. A little later, Jan could not hear the hounds, and the only noises that came to his ears were the natural sounds of the swamp-the hoarse booming of frogs, the chirping of crickets, the humming of insects, and the cries of night birds.

Tired and hungry, Jan besought his foster mother to stop, but she would not do so until the very edge of the forest was reached, and they could no longer proceed without descending to the ground. She then curled up in the crotch of a tree, and the weary youth was glad to follow her example.

Jan was awakened by a call from Chicma. Hot sunlight was streaming down on his face through a rift in the branches. Looking down, he beheld the chimpanzee devouring some berries she was gathering from some low bushes that grew along the bank of a tiny stream which meandered through the marsh.

He leaned over to call to her, and as he did so, felt numerous twinges on his back, neck and arms, which changed his cry to one of pain. His limbs and body were bright red in color and felt extremely hot, while touching them caused a burning sensation that was anything but pleasant. There were many small red bumps, too, which itched intolerably, and these combined with the scratches he had received made the boy more uncomfortable than he had ever felt before. It was Jan's first experience with sunburn and mosquito bites in such heroic doses.

Hearing his cry of pain, Chicma looked up and called softly to him. At this instant the head of an alligator emerged from the water behind her, and the powerful jaws seized her by the arm. She screamed wildly in anguish. As she was being dragged into the water she gripped the thick roots of a cypress with her other arm and hung on, while the reptile shook and tugged, in an effort to break her hold and drag her into the stream.

Jan, who had been about to make a gingerly descent on account of his many hurts, on seeing this attack on his foster-parent, ignored his own soreness and dropped swiftly from limb to limb until he stood beside her. Then, with a snarl like that of a wild beast, he leaped astride the saurian's back, and bit, scratched and pommeled the armored enemy with no apparent effect except the damage to his own fists. He sought for a hold on the creature's head, to pull it away from Chicma, and his hands came in contact with two round bumps on top of the head. In these bumps were soft spots. Plunging the middle finger of each hand into one of these, he pulled backward.

At this, the alligator instantly let go its hold on its victim, and backed, wildly threshing, into the water. For Jan had found its eyes-the two most vulnerable points on its entire anatomy. Blinded, and with every bit of fight taken out of it, the reptile thrashed about in the shallow water, its sole object to escape those gouging fingers and unseat the creature on its back. As a result, Jan was thrown into the water, whence he floundered quickly to the shore, while the alligator, bent only on escape, glided to the center of the stream where it sank out of sight.

When Jan reached the bank, Chicma had climbed up into the tree and was whimpering and licking her wounded arm. He called to her to come down-that the danger from the monster had passed-but she was so badly frightened that she paid no heed to him.

This was Jan's first battle with anything other than the red-headed dummy of a woman which Cruel One had provided. He had, of course, played at fighting with Chicma many times, for she had, to the best of her ability, instructed him in the arts of defense and offense, but this was his first real fight, and he had won. He had conquered a very terrible monster of which even Chicma was afraid.

His chest swelled with pride as he strode stiffly up and down the muddy bank, calling the alligator all manner of disagreeable chimpanzee names, and inviting it to come back for more punishment. He tired of this presently, when the reptile did not reappear, and set to work to still the craving of his empty stomach by plucking and eating the berries which grew in profusion thereabout. He quickly learned to distinguish between green and ripe berries.

Jan's victory over the alligator made him feel superior to the ape-and whereas he had previously believed her greater than himself, both mentally and physically, he now knew, instinctively, that this was not the case. His man mind had begun to assert itself-to take its natural place in the scale of creation. He was stronger and braver than Chicma, and a greater fighter. She might betray her weakness and inferiority by whimpering, but as for him, no matter how great the pain, he would henceforth suffer in silence.

They traveled without food until late in the afternoon, when they came to the lonely cabin of one of the dwellers in the swamp. After reconnoitering to make sure that there was no one about they raided a garden which yielded sweet potatoes, celery, lettuce and tomatoes, with some luscious grapefruit off a nearby tree for dessert.

When they had eaten their fill, they resumed their journey, traveling toward the reddening disk of the setting sun. But they had not gone far when there came to the ears of Jan a strange and fearful sound. It seemed to him an incongruous combination of whispering and roaring, and his active young imagination immediately set to work to picture the monster that could make so voluminous and terrible a sound.

He hesitated, fearful of venturing farther in the direction of the noise but as Chicma advanced unperturbed, and as he now felt himself braver and greater than she, he marched on beside her with no outward sign of the trepidation he felt.

It was not long before they came to what was to Jan a most amazing sight. It was a broad, curved beach of gleaming white sand with white-crested waves rolling in, dashing a fine spray high in the air and leaving a line of silvery spume at the point where they receded.

Chicma walked out upon the smooth white sand, and turned to the left. Jan, perturbed but resolute, walked beside her. The sand felt soft and pleasant to his injured feet, and it was not long before he gathered sufficient courage to walk out into the spume. This felt exceptionally pleasant until the salt began to smart his wounds, whereupon he imagined that the sea was becoming angry with him, and quickly retreated to the dry sands.

The sun was just disappearing into the evening mists with a last blaze of blood-red glory when they arrived at the bank of a small rivulet that flowed into the Gulf. A few coconut trees adorned its banks, and Chicma instantly climbed one of these, throwing a half dozen large nuts to the ground. She then descended and Jan, always quick to mimic followed her example as she tore the fibrous covering with her sharp teeth.

When she had uncovered the end of the inner shell she broke this open with a stone and eagerly drank the liquid it contained. Jan also picked up a stone and bashed in the end of his coconut. He tasted the milk gingerly at first, then drained it with great relish. He was discovering more good things all the time in this strange outer world which had been withheld from him for so long.

But there was more to come, for Chicma, removing more of the fibrous outer wrapping, proceeded to break off pieces of the inner shell and devour the white, tasty nut meat that adhered to it. Jan did likewise, and found another delight.

But Chicma did not open a second nut, for there suddenly sounded above the roar of the surf, an ominous rumble accompanied by a white flash, far out over the Gulf. Calling Jan to follow her, the chimpanzee hurried into the thickest part of the underbrush in the coconut grove, and there crouched, shivering with her fear of the lightning.

Jan could not understand this fear. Unperturbed, he looked out over the Gulf in the direction of the noise. The rumblings were becoming louder, and the flashes brighter. The last red glow of sunset was being swallowed up by a tumbling mass of blue-black clouds. But these things were, to him, rather commonplace, for he had often seen approaching thunder clouds through the high windows of the menagerie, and several times had viewed them from the stockade.

What principally attracted his attention was a most puzzling thing on the surface of the water. It appeared to have a pair of large, white wings, placed one in front of the other, which did not flap like those of birds, but were held more or less rigidly, straight up in the air. He was astonished to see one of the wings swiftly disappear, followed in a moment by the disappearance of the other. On the back of the thing were tiny moving creatures that looked, at a distance, to be much like Cruel One.

Jan did, not know that what he had seen was not an animal, but a Venezuelan schooner, which had scurried to anchor behind a sheltering point of land and then lowered sail, in order to escape the fury of the coming storm. Nor had he any means of knowing that one of the figures on the deck had been scanning the shore with binoculars and had seen both Jan and Chicma-a naked boy and an African ape-here on the western coast of Florida.

A short time after Jan crouched down beside the cowering Chicma, the storm broke.

Captain Francesco Santos, commander and owner of the schooner Santa Margarita, brushed back the straggling hairs of his small, coal-black mustache, inserted a cigarette between his coarse lips, and lit it.

Filling his lungs with tobacco smoke, he exhaled slowly and as he did so, addressed Jake Grubb, his powerful, blondbearded first mate, who was peering at the shore through a pair of binoculars.

"Por Dios, Senor Grubb! You seem to 'ave locate' sometheeng that ees of more interest than the coming storm. May I 'ave the look, also?"

"I seen it, but I don't believe it," replied Grubb, handing his binoculars to Santos.

Santos turned the glass in the direction indicated, and focused it to suit his vision.

"Son of wan gun, senor!" he exclaimed. "It ees not the bacardi, for I see them also, and me, I drank tequila."

"What are they a doin' now, captain?"

"The ape ees just take what you call the duck into the bushes. The boy ees stand there and look at us. The ape ees scared, but that boy, he's not afraid of notheeng, I tal you."

A particularly loud clap, of thunder, followed by the spatter of raindrops and a violent tilting of the schooner as the storm broke, sent both men scurrying for cover. Once inside the cabin, Santos lit another cigarette and got out his bottle of tequila, while Grubb resorted to his pipe and his rum.

"What would you think, captain, if I told you I had an idear for makin' some easy money?" asked Grubb, refilling his glass and sucking at his pipe.

"I would be delight', senor, if I, Francesco Santos, could thereby make what you call the honest penny."

"I believe," said Grubb, "in takin' what the good Lord provides. Over there, hidin' in the bushes, is some kind of a big African ape. It may be a gorilla or it may be a chimpanzee, but I know from its looks that it's one or the other. It must have got away from some circus, because apes like that don't run wild anywheres except in Africa. People were payin' good money to see that critter, and they'll do it again. I traveled with a street carnival for one season, and barked on a side-show door with a circus, so I know something about the racket. If we catch that ape, bring it aboard, and build a cage for it, we kin turn this schooner into a showboat. Or we kin buy a tent, travel from port to port in ease and style, and stay in each place as long as the dough rolls in. There ain't no limit to where we kin go, what we kin do, or how much we kin make."

"Carramba! That sound pretty good, amigo. One hour before daylight, then, we leave for the shore weeth nets and ropes. I dreenk to our success amigo."

"Down the hatch," replied Grubb, as he tossed off his drink.

IV. CAPTURED
JAN WAS awakened by a low cry of warning from Chicma. Then he heard the sound of human voices. The darkness had passed, and a pink glow heralded the coming of the sun.

The voices grew louder-closer, and there were crashing sounds in the underbrush all around them. As these drew nearer, Chicma, calling softly to the boy to follow, made a sudden rush to break through the narrowing circle.

As she leaped out of the bushes, the ape tried to dart between two men who stood about ten feet apart. One was a swarthy fellow with a small mustache. The other was jet black, and gigantic in stature. But as she ran forward, the two suddenly lifted a net which they had been trailing between them, and in a moment she was struggling in its meshes which the two men drew tighter and tighter around her.

Bewildered by the strange sights and sounds, Jan dashed off into the undergrowth, but when he saw that Chicma had been caught he paused, hoping to see her break away. As it became increasingly evident to him that she would not be able to do this unaided, he snarled like an enraged animal-then charged.

The two men were bending over Chicma as she thrashed on the ground, attempting to put ropes on her. Four others, three with brown skins and one with a bushy yellow beard, were running toward them carrying nets and ropes. Paying no heed to these reenforcements, Jan leaped on the back of the man nearest him-the swarthy fellow with the little mustache-and growling and snarling like a jungle beast, attacked him with teeth and nails.

But the yellow-bearded giant ran up behind him and pulled him off.

Quick as a flash, Jan turned on this new enemy and sank his teeth into the hairy forearm. With an exclamation of pain and anger, the big man jabbed a huge fist into the boy's midriff, causing him to let go his hold and gasp for breath. The fist flashed out a second time, colliding with his jaw, and Jan's whirling senses left him.

Jan did not know when he was bundled aboard the ship, nor could he know that his jailer of sixteen years, Dr. Bracken, had resumed his trailing, after daybreak, just a bit too late. The signs of struggle and capture were plain enough, and Bracken furiously followed the tracks down to the shore, where the marks of a boat's prow were etched deep in the sand. Looking out across the bay he saw a small schooner flying the flag of Venezuela. He could not make out her name. Even as he looked, her sails were raised and her anchor hoisted. Then slowly, gracefully, the vessel sailed around the point and southward. The half-maddened doctor knew that for the time being, at least, his vengeful pursuit was balked.

When Jan recovered consciousness once more, he was in a strange half-dark place of queer sights, sounds, smells and motions. There was a thick collar around his neck, fastened by a heavy chain to a large ring in the planking behind him. A little way from him; and trying to reach him, but held by her chain in a similar manner to a ring on the opposite side of the space they occupied, was Chicma.

She called softly to him, and when he answered, seemed satisfied by the assurance that he was alive, and quit tugging at her chain.

Through the cracks between the boards on, which he lay, and which constantly lurched under him with a motion that gave Jan a most unpleasant feeling, he could hear the swishing of bilge water, which stank abominably. Some mildewed excelsior had been scattered over the planking, and the sour odor of this only increased the wave of nausea that swept over him.

For hours that seemed interminable, he lay there, constantly swayed by the lurching of the ship, and suffering in silence.

Then a hatch was raised there was the sound of voices and footsteps descending the ladder, and the swarthy man with the little mustache, came through the door. Just behind him was the huge individual with the yellow beard.

Jan instinctively hated all men with beards because Dr. Bracken was bearded. And to top this instinctive dislike was the fact that this particular bearded man had injured him.

The two men were talking. But Jan, of course, was unable to understand them. The fact that they were looking at him, however, was enough. He growled menacingly.

"I'll be hanged if that kid ain't wilder than the chimpanzee," said Jake Grubb. He walked closer to Jan and held out a hand placatingly. "Come here, boy. What's yer name?"

Jan bared his teeth with a fierce snarl, and snapped at the hand which was hastily withdrawn.

"Blood of the devil!" exclaimed Santos with mock-consternation. "Look out, senor. You will be devoured."

"You know, captain, I b'lieve this kid'll make a better drawin' card than the ape," said Grubb. "We kin show 'em in a cage together-the African wild man and the African ape. We'll have to make the boy some kind of a breech clout or skirt out of hide."

"So amigo? And who weel persuade heem to wear it?"

"I'll make him wear it or break his back," replied Grubb.

V. THE ROPE'S END
FOR MANY HOURS, Jan lay on the floor, rising only to drink at intervals from a pan of water which the men had gingerly slid into his cage.

But the sea grew calmer, the rocking of the craft became less violent and gradually his seasickness left him. And he grew very hungry.

Although Chicma had been fed several times during this period, Jan's original ration remained untouched; and he was given nothing more to eat. A huge black man-the one who had helped to capture the chimpanzee-had come in once and refilled his water pan for him. Jan had growled at this giant as he had at the others, but the man had talked softly, soothingly, to him, and had been very deliberate in his movements, so the boy had made no attempt to molest him as he poured the water into the pan from the pitcher.

With his appetite back and his sickness gone, Jan drank the last of the water which the black giant had left for him. Then he ate the bananas set before him-a fruit of which he was very fond. But the cold chili burned him with its pepper, and he quickly spat out the first mouthful. But the smell of the meat in it urged him on. Scooping up another mouthful, he chewed it rapidly, and swallowed it. This mouthful seemed to bite him a little, but not nearly so much as the first. Quickly he finished the contents of the bowl.

His stomach filled, Jan was stretching out in his excelsior when he heard the voices of men descending the ladder.

Tensely alert, he sat up as two men entered the room. The foremost was the yellow-bearded white man he had learned to dislike so intensely. Behind him walked the giant Negro. The white man carried a short stout rope and a roll of leather. The Negro carried a pitcher, with which be refilled the pans of Chicma and Jan while the first mate unrolled his leather bundle.

"Now, Borno," said Grubb, "I'll show you how to dress up this kind. Might have to dress him down before I dress him up, but that's all in a day's work."

"Oui, m'sieu'," acquiesced Boron, who was a Haitian Negro, and actually though not nominally the second mate of the Santa Margarita. "Oui, m'sieu', I watch."

The leather which Grubb had unrolled was a short skirt, slightly resembling a Highlander's kilts, and attached to a stout belt. Holding this spread out in his two huge hands, he slowly advanced toward Jan, who backed away with a snarl.

"Needn't to act thataway. Ain't goin' to hurt ye none," said Grubb. But his actions belied his words, for he made a sudden spring, clasping the belt around the boy's waist, and lifting him from the floor.

Squirming, kicking, clawing, Jan was soon dangling with the belt beneath his armpits, still unbuckled. With cat-like quickness, he doubled up and bit clear through one of Grubb's hands.

Roaring a blood-curdling oath, the first mate dropped him and backed away, nursing his wounded hand. Then, flinging down the leather skirt, he caught up the rope he had brought.

Jan did not cower as the big man advanced toward him, but strained at his chain in his endeavor to reach his enemy. Standing just out of his reach, the mate brought down the end of the rope with a skill that came of long practice, and a little stream of blood trickled downward, from the welt it made in Jan's tender, sunburned skin.

Again and again he swung the cruel rope, blood spurting from a new welt at each blow. But not so much as the slightest whimper escaped the lips of Jan. Instead, he strained at his collar until it nearly choked him in his attempts to reach his cruel foe. And in his glittering eyes was the light of a killing frenzy.

Aroused by this mistreatment of her foster child, and by the smell of blood, Chicma also was tugging at her chain, endeavoring to go to the boy's rescue while voicing her anger in forceful chimpanzee invective, and gnashing her powerful teeth until her pendulous lips and hairy chest were flecked with saliva.

Borno watched the proceedings calmly at first, but when the body of the boy was a mass of bloody welts and his spirit remained unbroken, his eyes glittered with a light that echoed the look in those of Jan, and his thick lips compressed in an expression of disapproval.

"Zis is too much for Borno," he growled at the mate, and went up on deck.

Chicma, who had been jumping up and down, now turned, and grasping her chain in both front paws, braced her hind feet against the wall and pulled. Jan, who was as quick to see the advantage of this means of leverage as he was to imitate, followed her example. He was stronger and heavier than the ape, and the staple which held the ring pulled out, dropping him on his bloody back on the rough planking.

More amused than perturbed by this incident, Grubb laughed and cut at the boy's unprotected chest and abdomen with his bloody rope.

But it was only for an instant that Jan remained on the floor. With lightning quickness he rolled out of reach, then leaped to his feet and faced his tormentor. Grubb instantly followed him, and had his rope upraised for another blow when Jan seized the heavy chain which hung from his collar and, imitating his attacker, swung it back in retaliation. It caught the first mate a terrific blow across the face, half stunning him for an instant. But before Jan could swing it a second time the man leaped for him.

Unhampered now by the chain, it would have been easy for the youth to dodge beneath the extended arms. But he had no thought of flight. Instead of attempting to escape, he leaped on the back of his enemy. There flashed to him, at this instant, the memory of the manner in which he had vanquished the alligator. And he did not doubt that this new enemy might be overcome in the same manner. Lightning-quick to act on any impulse, Jan found the two soft vulnerable spots and plunged in gouging fingers.

With a shriek of anguish, Grubb seized the boy and flung him over his head. But swift as his action had been, it was far too slow to save his eyes from torture.

Unhurt by his fall, Jan sprang to his feet to face a totally changed enemy. Instead of menacing him with the cruel rope, the mate was now holding his hands over his face and groaning. But such conduct only added contempt to Jan's hatred. Again he swung his heavy chain, cutting Grubb across his unprotected middle.

With a shriek of fear, the mate groped for the door, and hastily climbed the ladder. But Jan, his anger unsated, followed him, relentlessly swinging his heavy chain.

When Borno, having sickened at the sight of the cruelty practiced on Jan reached the deck, he found Captain Santos scanning the horizon with his binoculars.

"'Ave you dress the boy so soon?" Santos asked, as he struck a match on the side of the cabin.

"Non, m'sieu' le capitain," replied the Negro respectfully. "I theenk you better stop M'sieu' Grubb from use zat rope. Zat boy he's never geeve up until he dead. Borno know."

Santos laughed nastily. "You lak the young devil pretty well, beh? You don't lak to see heem hurt. Well, I tal you sometheeng. Thees Grubb knows bees beesiness. He's 'andle, many men-'undreds, thousands. He's 'andle man or boy wan time, that wan nex' time ees do what Senor Grubb tal heem."

They both whirled at a sudden sound.

"Nombre de Dios!" Santos cried. "What 'as 'appen to you, senor?"

But Grubb, who had just emerged from the hatchway, blood streaming down his face, neither saw nor heard them. Shrieking his fear and anguish, he ran aimlessly hither and thither across the deck. And following him grimly, relentlessly, was Jan, bloody but unconquered, swinging his heavy chain regularly and effectively.

At each thud of the chain Grubb tripped over a coil of rope and shrieked and ran. Once he fell. But he was on his feet again in an instant, running as if the very devil were after him. Santos and Borno sprang forward to rescue the mate. But they were far too slow. Before they shad taken a dozen steps they saw him blunder against the rail and pitch overboard.

Both men instantly hurried to the rail, Santos hastily snatching a life preserver while he watched the water for the mate's reappearance. His head bobbed up, and the captain cast the circle of inflated rubber. But the mate could not see it.

Following the ship at a pace that matched its own, several large sail-like fins protruded from the water. The two men saw them converge toward the struggling human figure.

"Maria Madre!" exclaimed Santos. "Sharks! It ees the end!"

One fin, nearer than the others, suddenly disappeared. The bobbing head went down with a final, despairing shriek. There was a flashing and darting hither and thither of other fins and the water was churned to a pink foam.

Both men had, for the time, forgotten the presence of the red-haired youth. They found him lying unconscious beside the rail in a pool of his own blood, the heavy chain still gripped in his fingers.

Borno lifted him as tenderly as if Jan had been his own child.

"Maitresse Ezillee," he prayed to his Voodoo goddess, "give zis boy bees life, bees health."

Gathering Jan to his broad black bosom, he carried him down the ladder and gently laid him on his bed of excelsior.

VI. HURRICANE
WEAKENED by the terrific loss of blood from his many wounds Jan did not recover consciousness for some time. When he did, he noticed that beneath him there was some thing softer and more pleasant to lie upon than he had ever felt in his life before. Borno, who squatted near him watching anxiously, had brought one of his own blankets to throw over the rough excelsior.

As Jan opened his eyes, Borno talked soothingly to the youth, who lay there, too sick to show either resentment or appreciation. Presently the Negro, who knew from experience the thirst that comes to the severely wounded, proffered the pan of water. Jan made a feeble effort to sit up, but his head swam and he sank back.

His huge hand gentle as that of a woman, Borno helped the youth to raise his head and held the pan to his lips. Jan drank eagerly, deeply-then looked his thanks at the big Negro and lay back once more, closing his eyes.

Borno rose and quietly left the room. Mounting the ladder, he met Santos

"Pardon, m'sieu', but I don' theenk zat boy need to be chain'," he said. "He's ver' seeck boy."

"Weeth our own eyes we saw what he did to Senor Grubb," replied the captain. "Me, I would rather see el tigre loose on my ship."

As Santos's native language was Spanish and Borno's Haitian Creole, the common ground was English, which both understood fairly well, as did the members of the mestizo crew, who were from Jamaica and Trinidad.

"Zat boy ees need planty sunlight-fresh air," persisted Borne, "or he's gone die."

"Maybe you like to make the cage for heem on deck," suggested Santos. "Then we can take off the chain."

"I make ze cage, m'sieu'," promised Borne eagerly.

And so it came about that in a few days, during which the Santa Margarita had sped steadily southward, Jan and Chicma were installed in an airy, sunlit cage on the deck, where they could breathe the fresh salt breeze, uncontaminated by the scent of bilge water, mildewed excelsior, and the lingering ghosts of previous smelly cargoes which haunted the hold.

Borno insisted on not only feeding, but personally attending to the wants of the boy and ape. And both soon became so friendly toward him that he could enter the cage without fear of attack, although if Santos, the steward Audrey, or any of the others approached the bars they met with unmistakable signs of hostility.

From the start, Borno attempted to establish communication with the boy through speech, using broken English rather than his Haitian Creole, as it was the language spoken on the ship. Failing in this, he resorted to simple words and signs. It was not long before he found that Jan only knew four words: his own name, that of Chicma, and "Mother! Kill!"

The big Negro then set out to teach him to speak, and with considerable success. Despite his former lack of human association, Jan had a quick, bright mind, and once he discovered the purpose of the Negro's patient drilling, was eager to learn. Each day he added a few words to his meager vocabulary, which, when Borno was away, he took great pleasure in repeating over and over again to Chicma, much to her puzzlement.'

From a number of tanned jaguar skins, which had been rejected by New Orleans fur buyers because of shot holes and other imperfections, Borno fashioned three garments. Understanding the imitative nature of Jan and Chicma, he entered the cage and put on one which he had made for himself. He did this several times before Jan followed his example and donned the garment which Borno had given him. Several days later Chicma also put on her jaguar skin. And within two weeks all were wearing them.

Borno tried taking his off, but this wouldn't work, for each time he did this the youth and ape promptly removed theirs. So he was forced to go about in his primitive attire, much to the secret amusement of the other members of the crew-secret, because they all feared the mighty thews of the giant Negro.

The captain said that as soon as they made port the exhibition would commence. Borno was to represent an African savage who had assisted in the capture of the chimpanzee and wild boy in their native haunts. Santos was composing a colorful and highly imaginative ballyhoo to be used as soon as he could get a tent erected in the first South American port.

But before they could make port there was an unforeseen occurrence which the carefully laid plans of the embryo showman had not included.

Borno was returning from feeding his two charges, when he encountered Santos, very much agitated. The sails were flapping idly-barely moving the ship through the water.

"Peste!" he said. "I don' like! That damn' barometer she's drop to beat hall"

"I sink a storm ees come, man capitain," replied the Haitian. "Borno smell it in ze air."

"Me, I know it too damn' well," said Santos, savagely flinging his cigarette butt overboard. "Another day and we would 'ave made the port, but now-I don' know."

The storm struck two hours later, and so terrific was its force that, despite the fact that every bit of canvas except the jib had been tightly reefed, the foremast cracked and went by the board with the first impact. Santos ordered a small staysail rigged in front of the mainmast, but it was instantly torn to shreds and a seaman was lost.

This threw the ship completely out of control, had any slight measure of control indeed been possible in the swirling, foaming, roaring maelstrom of wind and water that followed.

A helpless plaything of wind and waves, the schooner twisted, turned, rose and plunged, cavorting obediently at the whim of its undisputed master, the storm. The decks were constantly awash, and despite the battened hatches much water leaked into the hold.

Penned in their cage, which was lashed to the mainmast, Jan and Chicma were overwhelmed by wave after wave of seething water. Jan nearly strangled on the first one, but after that learned to do his breathing during the intervals when his head was above water. Chicma seemed to know such things instinctively.

For hour upon hour the storm continued without slackening its violence. Then the forward hatch was ripped off by a huge wave, and water began pouring into the hold.

As suddenly as it had begun, the storm abated, but in the meantime the schooner had shipped so much water she was likely to go down at any minute. Knowing the hand pumps would be useless against this deluge, and feeling his ship sinking beneath his feet, the captain ordered a lifeboat launched, cursing luridly as he took his place in the stern.

Every member of the crew was aboard and the boat was ready to be launched, when Borno who stood in the prow, still wearing his jaguar suit, suddenly leaped back to the, deck.

"Zat boy!" he said. "I mus' turn heem loose!"

"Come back, fool! 'Ave you gone loco?" roared Santos. "We 'ave no time!"

"I mus' save zat boy," replied Borno, whipping his heavy machete from his belt as he hurried toward the cage.

"Es wan damn' fool," shouted Santos, to no one in particular. "Lower away."

There was a creaking of davits, a whining of rusty pulleys and the boat splashed to the water. Heavy oars wielded by brawny arms pushed it away from the ship's side. The lifeboat disappeared in the trough of a huge wave, rose on the crest of another, disappeared once more, and was soon far from the ship.

But Borno had not even looked back to note its progress, as intent on his mission of mercy, he chanted a prayer to Ogour Badagris, the Voodoo storm god, and started on his perilous way to the cage. Though still lashed to the mainmast, it had broken some of the ropes and was sliding around on the slippery deck with each lurch of the ship.

Twice the huge Negro was knocked flat by the rushing waters, and twice he regained his feet before he reached his objective. He did not pause to open the wet knots which held the door in place, but slashed them with his machete. As he flung the door wide an immense wave swept over the ship and the last lashing broke. The cage, with its two occupants still inside and Borno clinging to one of the bars, was carried overboard.

As the huge wave swept the cage into the seething water, Jan held his breath, hopefully awaiting the opportunity to breathe which had always come in a reasonable length of time before, and clinging to one of the thick bars. But this time it seemed to him that the opportunity would never be forthcoming. His lungs began to hurt; the pain became intense torture. Involuntarily he took a breath, and the torture was magnified a thousand-fold as several ounces of salt water rushed into his lungs. Then, blessed relief just in time, the bar to which he was clinging rose above the surface of the water.

Strangling and choking, he inhaled great lungfuls of air. Clinging to a bar beside him, Chicma seemed to be in like case. And swimming beside the floating cage, gripping its door with one huge black hand, Jan saw Borno.

The cage was floating bars up, its opened door swung outward over the edge and causing one side to sag. Jan tried to climb out through the door, but before he had half of his body out of the water the entire cage went under, ducking Chicma. He subsided into the water once more, and the bars of the cage emerged. Chicma chattered angrily, and Borno told him to "Keep down."

Thereafter Jan held his head only above the surface of the water that sloshed about in the cage. Borno continued swimming with one hand while he held to the door with the other.

Presently Jan heard a roaring sound that seemed familiar. Then he remembered the sound he had heard shortly before his first sight of salt water-the roaring of breakers on a beach. He wanted to raise himself once more to look out, but the memory of his last experience restrained him.

The roaring grew louder, and great foamy waves began sweeping over the cage, rocking it violently. Suddenly the bottom struck something solid, and with its two startled and half drowned occupants still clinging to the bars, turned over and over. It stopped with the bars down, half full of water, waves spanking against one side. Jan and Chicma sat there in the water, barely able to see the interior of their prison by the dim light that filtered through the cracks between the planks.

Above the roaring and slapping of the waves Jan heard a thudding sound. Presently more light came in, and the blade of Borno's machete flashed downward again and again, cutting a great V in one of the planks. To Jan, sitting there in his soggy prison, the time seemed interminable before the board was cut in two.

Borno sheathed his weapon and, seizing a half of the plank, pulled it toward him, bending the spikes that held it at the corner. Jan and Chicma quickly squirmed through the opening, and the three, hurled forward again and again by the breakers that raced in from behind them, quickly reached a white, sandy beach.

Apparently exhausted by his efforts, Borno threw himself on the sand. Chicma, also, squatted on the beach to rest. She was quite old for a chimpanzee, and her recent experience had tired her. But Jan, save for a slight soreness in his lungs and nasal cavities from the salt water: he had inhaled, was feeling not only fit but ravenously hungry.

Just above the matted jungle growth that fringed the beach, three coconut palms reared their crowns, dangling their fruit invitingly. With a wordless cry of delight, Jan plunged through the undergrowth toward them. He was about to spring up the nearest tree, when two powerful brown hands, reaching from behind him, suddenly gripped his throat.

Unable to cry out because of the strangling pressure on his windpipe, Jan was dragged, kicking and struggling, back into the dark depths of the South American jungle.

VII. BROWN MEN'S PRIZE
JAN'S STRUGGLES presently grew less as the pressure of the powerful fingers on his throat continued. Then his arms were seized and tightly bound behind his back. For some time he lay on the ground, panting for breath with rattling palate, and staring defiantly up at the strange creature whose prisoner he had become.

The man was short and powerful, and naked save for an abbreviated loin-cloth. His straight black hair was cut in a soup-bowl bob, and his coppery skin glistened with perspiration from his recent exertions, for, despite his youth Jan was stronger than the average man and had given him a good tussle.

Jan watched the native suspiciously as he took up a bundle of long sticks-as long as he was tall-from the ground. One of these sticks was curved, with a string stretched across the curve from tip to tip. The others were sharply pointed at one end. To Jan, a stick had always meant a potential beating, and a low growl rumbled from his throat as his captor made a step toward him.

Puzzled by this unusual sound, coming from a human being, the tall savage paused for a moment, looking quizzically down at his prisoner. He took a second step, and a louder growl resulted. Then he uttered a few words. The youth's only answer was a snarl and a quick leap to his feet. Then he darted into the jungle, his hands still bound behind him.

As he dashed away through the forest, Jan heard a quick grunt of surprise. Then there was a_ twang, and one of the long sticks whizzed past his ear, burying its point in a tree trunk, where it quivered for a moment as if alive.

Sprinting, leaping, stumbling, dodging first one way, then another, and constantly goaded to his utmost speed by the unmistakable sounds of pursuit behind him, the youth ran on and on until his breath came in great sobbing gasps and there was a terrific pain in his side: But still the sound of those menacing, footsteps followed him relentlessly, doggedly.

Suddenly there came to his nostrils an odor that was hatefully familiar to him. It was the smell of burning wood, and he instantly associated it with Dr. Bracken and his years of captivity. The cook always burned wood in her kitchen stove, and at some time during the day there was always a puff of wind to carry it into the menagerie.

Jan halted for a moment, suspicious of the acrid odor, but a shout from his pursuer sent him running forward again. The shout was instantly answered by a voice directly ahead of him. Soon there were more yells on his right and left, and more answers from the man who, pursued him. Accompanying the yells were the patter of footsteps and the rustling of underbrush, warning him that he had been surrounded.

Looking about for a place to hide, Jan selected a clump of huge begonias, which spread their immense leaves nearby. Plunging into this clump, he squatted down, and peering through a space between two gigantic leaves, watched for the approach of the numerous enemies his ears told him were closing in on him.

As he sat there with perspiration streaming from him, endeavoring to keep his labored breathing as quiet as possible, two bronze-skinned savages suddenly came into Jan's line of vision. They passed on, but were succeeded by three more, the last of whom stopped as something caught his attention. It was one of Jan's footprints, and it told this trained hunter as plainly as words that the youth was hidden behind the broad leaves of the begonia. With a loud whoop of exultation, he sprang upon the crouching Jan and dragged him forth.

In an instant, Jan was the center of a ring of curious savages, who plucked at his shock of red hair, pulled at his jaguar-skin garment, and poked at his sunburned body as if he were a strange being from another planet, chattering excitedly to each other the while with many grunts and exclamations of amazement.

His spirit unbroken and his anger aroused by this manhandling, Jan voiced his disapproval in the only manner he knew-by alternately snarling and growling at his captors. This demonstration seemed to amuse them hugely, and several of them took to baiting him for the purpose of entertainment.

One huge fellow took it upon himself to poke Jan's tender, sunburned nose with his forefinger. He instantly withdrew the hand with a howl of pain, for Jan, with a quick snap, had bitten it nearly through at the second joint. Enraged, the wounded savage whipped out a machete and would have cut off Jan's head, but two companions seized and dragged him away, while the entire party laughed at his discomfiture.

Then Jan's original captor took him by one arm and one of his fellows seized the other, after which they hustled him along between them into a cleared space where a fire was burning and many hammocks were swung. Here Jan's feet were bound, and he was thrown to the ground with one man watching him. Several others gathered around the fire, which they replenished, and over which, when it was going well, they suspended the carcasses of six monkeys, a capybara and two peccaries to roast.

Despite the ache of his bound hands and feet and the stinging bites of numerous tiny black flies, Jan kept every sense alert, listening to the strange chatter of the bronze-skinned men and watching their every movement. All were naked except for their abbreviated loin-cloths, and all were well armed. Some, he observed, had the bent sticks with strings stretched across, and the bundles of sharp-pointed sticks which could fly from them. All had either machetes or knives, familiar to Jan because of the assortment of cutlery which Dr. Bracken had used in cutting up meat. Some also carried short, heavy sticks with sharp stones lashed to their thick ends, and some had very long sticks with sharp points.

As soon as they finished eating, the savages, one by one, wandered to their hammocks, which were slung in the smoke of the fire to keep off insect pests and went to sleep.

Jan's original captor brought him some gnawed monkey bones with a little meat left on them, and unbound his hands so he could eat. His fingers were first numb, then filled with a sensation that resembled the pricking of a thousand needles as the blood began to circulate freely in them. He ate a few bites of monkey flesh, took a long drink from a gourd which his captor proffered, and submitted to having his hands bound once more, for he saw that resistance would be useless.

The black flies, which Jan was powerless to brush away, disappeared at nightfall, but their place was taken by hordes of mosquitoes. For hours Jan lay awake squirming and tossing in fruitless endeavor to rid himself of his tiny tormentors But at last he slept.

Awakened at daybreak by a stir in the camp around him, Jan was fed, given a drink of water, and left to watch the preparations for departure. All camp equipment was loaded into a half dozen large baskets, which were carried on men's backs, suspended by broad straps that went around their foreheads. When all was in readiness, Jan's feet were unbound and he was forced to march away with the others.

For five days Jan was taken deeper and deeper into the jungle by the band of hunters. Near the end of the fifth day they suddenly emerged into a circular clearing, in the center of which was a large round communal but or malocca, flanked by two crudely constructed lean-tos.

A dozen yapping mongrel dogs rushed out to greet them, instantly followed by more than a score of pot-bellied naked children whose clamor equaled that of the canines, and then by women wearing nothing but small square or triangular aprons.

Jan was dragged to a strong stump about five feet tall near the entrance to the communal hut, and bound to it by strips of fiber passed around his body. Then his hands and feet were unbound and he was given a drink of water. Dogs, children, and women crowded around him, all apparently more curious than the men had been. A dog nipped him on the shin, and Jan promptly kicked it over the heads of the children standing in front. Then a youth of about Jan's age, apparently its master, attempted reprisal by pulling his shock of red hair. Jan cuffed him off his feet with one well-placed blow, much to the young native's chagrin and the amusement of the spectators.

Then a middle-aged matron, evidently the squaw of Jan's original captor, came to his side, knocking children and kicking dogs right and left. After she had cleared a space around him she handed him a piece of something flat and hard, evidently food. He bit into it, finding it rather tasteless and difficult to chew, but it satisfied his hunger which had been developed by the long march. It was a farinha cake, made from mandioca root.

Jan was left on exhibition at the stump for some time, but his popularity as an exhibit suddenly waned as another party of hunters returned with a new prisoner whose hands were bound behind him and 'who was urged forward by spear thrusts from behind. Although, like his captors, he was naked except for a loincloth and copper-skinned, he was much taller than the men who had captured him, none of whom were much taller than Jan, and his aspect was made ferocious by daubs of red ocher on his face, ornamented sections of bamboo thrust through the distended lobes of his ears, and a necklace of jaguar's teeth.

The new prisoner was quickly hustled to the stump and bound like Jan to the opposite side. Women and children crowded around him hurling insults, while dogs barked and snapped at his legs. But despite the abuse heaped upon him, he maintained a stoical silence.

As the sun sank lower and lower toward the horizon, and the shadows of the trees that rimmed the clearing grew longer, many children brought firewood, which they heaped around the two who were bound to the post. Jan had no idea what it was for; and although the silent Indian behind him knew, he gave no sign.

A number of cooking fires were built, and much meat was consumed, as both hunting parties had been quite successful. But this time the savages did not retire to their hammocks immediately after their meal. Instead, they formed a large circle around the prisoners.

As soon as darkness fell, Jan's hands were bound like those of the other prisoner, and the circle of spectators began a slow dance around them in time to the throbbing cadence of a kettle-drum beaten by an old man. Many of the dancers carried flaming faggots, snatched from their cook fires, which they thrust into the prisoner's faces or held against their arms or bodies, inflicting painful burns.

Jan struggled to break his bonds, snarling and growling at his tormentors, but to no avail. Presently, imitating his fellow prisoner, who had neither moved nor cried out under torture, he relapsed into silence and ceased his struggles, resolved to show these people that he could stand pain as stoically as the big Indian.

The dance grew faster and faster, the searing thrusts of the lighted faggots more frequent. Then suddenly, as if at a prearranged signal, all of the dancers threw their faggots at the base of the pyre which had been stacked around the two torture victims. Jan heard a crackling sound that swiftly increased in volume. Then there was a sudden upthrust of licking flames and a burst of terrific heat which brought scorching, excruciating agony.

VIII. ORGY
BORNO AND CHICMA did not rest very long on the beach. By the time they were dry from their ocean bath, the rays of the sun had grown intolerable.

The ape got up first, and began sniffing the air as if some far-off scent had attracted her attention. Then she shuffled away in the direction of the jungle.

The big Negro, who was wise in the ways of wild things, observed her actions and followed her. He found her in a small patch of wild pineapples, devouring one of the fragrant fruits. Selecting a ripe one for himself, he drew his machete and hacking off the leaves and horny rind, ate it with gusto. As he was about to prepare another he thought of Jan and called him. There was no reply.

"Jan!" he shouted again, with all the power of his huge lungs. But not so much as an echo answered him. Chicma, evidently understanding what was wrong, threw back her head and called to Jan in her barking chimpanzee language.

The big Negro bad been raised in the jungles of his native Haiti, and, it did not take him long after returning to the beach to pick up Jan's trail. Chicma was beside him when he discovered the signs of Jan's struggle, and she bristled up with a snarl.

They followed the trail until nightfall, when darkness made further tracking impossible. Then Borno crept beneath the buttressed roots of a huge ceiba tree, and lay down to snatch such sleep as biting insects would allow. The chimpanzee crept in and curled up near him.

In the morning Borno divided his pineapple with Chicma, and they took the trail. Soon they came upon the deserted camp site of the hunters. Toward noon they found a clump of wild bananas and both ate their fill of the fruit. Then Borno shouldered half of a good-sized bunch to take along.

Thus they traveled day by day, Haitian man and African ape, both actuated by the same desire-to rescue the son of a North American millionaire from the savages of a South American jungle.

Near the end of the fifth day, when the man and ape had eaten their evening meal of Brazil nuts, and night had fallen, the hollow booming of a kettledrum came to their ears across the jungle.

Chicma paid no attention to the sound, but when Borno suddenly got up and stole away in the direction of the noise, she followed. The big Negro pushed his way through the jungle as rapidly as possible. Soon he could hear the whoops and yells of the dancers, and the slapping of their bare feet on the packed ground. Then he smelled smoke, saw the flicker of firelight, and emerged into the circular clearing.

Just ahead of him was the huge circle of the community hut. Beside it was the tall stump to which the prisoners were tied, around which the dancers whirled, their faces contorted and hideous in the firelight.

Borno circled and entered the clearing behind the big hut, in order to creep near the fire unobserved. Chicma followed him silently, but when he reached the rear of the malocca she sprang up onto its thatched roof.

Paying no attention to Chicma, as he did not count on her for much assistance, Borno gripped his heavy cudgel tightly in both hands and dashed around the hut. He had heard the crackle of burning wood which told him' that the death pyre was lighted.

With a blood-curdling yell and a swift rain of bone-crushing blows, he leaped among the dancers felling several and scattering the others right and left. At the same instant Chicma, who had poised herself on the thatched roof just above the door, was dropped inside the hut by the breaking of the-roof supports.

The frightened Indians fled in all directions. A few of them started to go into the malocca for their weapons. But when they were met at the door by Chicma-a terrifying hairy apparition wearing a jaguar skin, and frothing with rage-they fled weaponless, fully convinced that the evil demons of the jungle had joined forces against them.

Borno, meanwhile, kicked the burning wood away from the post, and with a few deft slashes of his machete released both prisoners.

As soon as he was free, the captive Indian rushed into the big hut, emerging with a large bundle of weapons and a big basket of smoked meat. Then he threw several flaming faggots onto the dry thatch, which immediately blazed up, lighting the entire clearing.

"Vamos!" he said, with a significant gesture and started away, the basket slung from his brawny shoulders and the weapons carried under one arm.

Borno understood the Spanish word for "Let's go!" and calling to Jan and Chicma, hurried after the tall Indian.

Jan, who had seen the wonderful efficiency of the machete paused for a moment to secure one of the coveted weapons from the belt of a fallen savage whose skull had been crushed by the big Negro's cudgel-then followed, with Chicma ambling behind him on hind feet and fore-knuckles.

The Indian, with remarkable precision, struck a narrow, trail at the edge of the clearing. This led them in a short time to a small stream, on the bank of which a number of dugout canoes rested side by side. Into one of these he dropped his basket of smoked meat and-bundle of weapons. Then he pushed the other boats, one by one, into the water, permitting them to drift away downstream, while Borno assisted.

When the last empty canoe was drifting downstream, the one which contained the food and weapons was launched, with Jan and Chicma riding in the middle. Borno wielded a paddle in front and the Indian in the rear.

Propelled by the silent strokes of the two powerful men, the canoe shot rapidly downstream, passing, one by one, the empty craft which had already been launched.

Huddled against Chicma, Jan was still suffering much from the burns inflicted by his captors, but he did not whimper nor cry out. Silent and wide-eyed, he drank in the brilliant spectacle of the star-strewn sky reflected by the gently rippling water, and strove to penetrate the mystery of the shadowy banks, from which came many mysterious and terrifying sounds-the night noises of the jungle which he had not learned to interpret.

Steered by the deft paddle of the Indian, the canoe soon emerged into a much broader stream. Here the steersman kept the craft in the middle as if he feared some danger from either shore.

Lulled by the rhythmic strokes of the paddles, Jan fell into a deep slumber and did not awaken until the hot rays of the morning sun struck him full in the face. The canoe was still traveling in the center of the broad river, the two men paddling with unremitting vigor.

The Indian presently steered the canoe toward the left bank. They were almost beneath the overhanging branches and vines before Jan saw that he was making for a narrow inlet, barely wide enough to admit the canoe. A moment more, and they were in the deep shadows beneath the densely matted roof of the jungle. The steersman deftly swung the prow of the boat inshore, and Borno, springing out, dragged it high on the muddy bank while two frightened turtles and a small alligator splashed into the water and disappeared.

Opening the lid of the basket, the Indian took out several strips of smoked meat. Then he picked up his bundle of weapons and stepped ashore. Depositing the weapons on the ground, he handed a strip of meat to each of his companions and to Chicma. Then he sat down to munch slowly the strip he had kept for himself.

Jan bit into his and found it tough and of a disagreeable flavor. It was tapir meat, hastily cured, and not only had a smoky taste but was rancid. Observing, however, that the Indian devoured his with gusto and that Borno tore off huge mouthfuls with his large white teeth and chewed them with great relish, Jan resolved to eat his whether he liked it or not. But Chicma merely sniffed at hers, then tossed it aside and waddled off into the jungle to look for something more to her liking.

As soon as the Indian had eaten, and drunk from the stream, he promptly stretched out on the ground and went to sleep. Borno followed his example. But Jan, who had slumbered all night in the boat was neither tired nor sleepy. He wandered along the bank of the small stream for a little way, disturbing a number of frogs and turtles, whose splashing leaps into the water interested him, and hacking off shrubs and water plants' with his newly acquired machete. This was freedom! This was life, and he gloried in it.

Presently there came a summons from Chicma-the food call. She had found something good to eat, and was calling her foster child to come and share it with her. Interested, but in no great hurry to comply, Jan wandered off in the general direction of the sound, lopping off lianas, branches and bits of bark from tree trunks with his new weapon. It was a fascinating thing, and he wished to become skilled in its use.

Despite his lingering gait, Jan soon arrived within sight of Chicma, who had found a clump of wild orange trees and was hungrily devouring the fruit. But he saw something else which brought a low growl from his throat and caused every hair on his body to stiffen. For, stretched out on a thick limb, his spotted sides barely rising and falling with his suppressed breathing, and the tip of his tail twitching nervously, was Fierce One, the jaguar, apparently about to spring down on the unwary Chicma, who seemed to have no intimation of his presence.

With a snarl and a cry of warning which Chicma understood, and which sent her instantly scuttling into a nearby tree, Jan bounded forward.

Surprised and annoyed at this interruption of its hunting, the jaguar turned and with a roar of rage leaped for the youth. The beast was lightning quick, but Jan, who had been trained all his life by a jungle creature, was just a shade quicker. With a slash of his machete at the hurtling beast, he flung himself to one side, just out of reach of the raking claws.

The jaguar was swift at recovery, but no swifter than Jan, for as it whirled for a second spring, he was on his feet, his keen machete ready for a second cut. In a fleeting instant he saw the result of his previous haphazard slash at his enemy--a paw half severed and dangling uselessly.

Then what had previously been but chance and an instinctive movement of self-protection became a fixed purpose. As the angry brute made its second leap, Jan slashed the other front paw and nimbly eluded the snarling bundle of feline fury. The second blow completely crippled the jaguar's other front paw.

Badly disabled and half disarmed though it was, the fierce beast turned again and attempted a leap. But it was a clumsy effort, and Jan found it easy to step to one side and bring his keen weapon down on the back of the jaguar's neck, severing the vertebrae. With the tenacity of life shown by all members of the cat family, the doomed beast thrashed about for some time, then lay still.

Jan stood back, watching the death struggles of his enemy with some curiosity, alert for a trick. But when the furry form lay quiet, he cautiously advanced and spurned it with his foot. There was no response. He seized a hind leg and turned the great beast over. What made it so limp and helpless? This was the first thing Jan had ever killed, and he did not fully understand it.

Perhaps Fierce One was sleeping, and would presently awaken to attack him. Well, let him come. Jan had overcome the awful alligator, the yellow-bearded man, and now Fierce One. With his tousled red head flung proudly back, he strutted over into the clump of orange trees in search of Chicma.

The old chimpanzee was not there, but by calling to her Jan finally got a reply, far off in the jungle. Chicma would, not come to him, but kept calling him to come with her-that Fierce One would surely eat him. Jan only laughed, but he complied, eventually locating the ape at the top of a tall tree.

"Come down, Chicma," he cried. "Fierce One will not hurt you. He is sleeping."

"It is a trick. He is only waiting to spring upon us," replied Chicma. "We must go farther away from him." Then she caught hold of a huge liana and swung out on it into another tree. By means of the vines and closely matted branches, she made rapid progress which only an ape can make, traveling always in a direction away from the orange grove.

Although he could have followed her with ease among the branches and vines, Jan preferred to walk on the ground. He was filled with pride and the sense of power.

After they got away from the river bank the undergrowth became less matted, so walking was comparatively easy. Jan wanted to show these jungle creatures that he was afraid of none of them.

All day they traveled through the jungle, Chicma fearfully keeping to the trees while Jan stubbornly remained on the ground. He thoroughly enjoyed the bright-colored butterflies that flapped through the shafts of sunlight, and the gayly plumed, raucous-voiced parrots and macaws.

There was a great flock of monkeys, too, who fled to the topmost branches, chattering vociferously. Jan, who had learned to know and imitate their simian language since infancy, chattered back at them, assuring them of his friendship. But they did not trust him. He looked too much like a man and smelled too much like a jaguar, for the scent of the great cat's blood was still on his machete and body. The jaguar skin, too, from which his single garment was fashioned, was a danger signal to jungle dwellers.

Jan regaled himself with the cloying sweetness and fragile beauty of the orchids which grew in great profusion and his heart missed a beat when a huge tapir-much bigger than the jaguar he had killed-came crashing through the jungle in front of 'him.

It was not until the patches of sunlight no longer penetrated the forest roof and it began to grow dark that Jan thought of Borno and the Indian, sleeping on the muddy bank of the little stream.

He had grown fond of his big black friend, and did not want to desert him. Nor did he want to leave Chicma, who was leading him farther and farther away from the only human being who had unselfishly befriended him.

He stopped and shouted to the chimpanzee to wait. But the cry had scarcely left his lips when something flashed through the forest shadows striking his left side, and spinning him half around with the force of its impact.

Jan clutched at the long shaft, wet with his own blood, and broke it off, gritting his teeth that he might silently bear the pain. Then he reached behind him for that part which had gone through his flesh, and jerked it out. But the pain and loss of blood were too great. A giddiness assailed him, and he sank limply to the ground.

With a whoop of triumph, and machete flashing in his hand ready to deliver the death-blow, a savage came bounding out of the shadows.

IX. CHICMA'S ATTACK
SITTING on a limb fully fifty feet above Jan's head, Chicma heard his call and noticed with bewilderment his actions when the arrow struck him. But when she heard the whoop of the savage, and saw him rushing toward Jan with upraised knife, her mother instinct came to the fore. With a snarl of rage, she swung down from the limb on which she had been sitting, and timed her drop with such precision that she landed on the Indian before he could reach his intended victim.

Knocked off his feet by the impact of the hairy body of the ape, the Indian fell on his face, dropping both his machete and his longbow. For a moment he lay there, half stunned and breathless. Then Chicma sank her huge teeth into his neck. The pain brought him to his senses, and he groped for his weapons. Failing to find them; he stood up and shook himself with the ape still clinging to him like a bloodthirsty octopus.

Watching the struggle of the two as through a dim haze, Jan made several attempts to rise, but each time fell back because of the giddiness induced by his wound. It was not until he saw the Indian stoop and reach for his machete that he was able to get to his feet.

His keen weapon recovered, the savage made a slash at Chicma's head. She dodged, and he was about to swing for her again when he saw Jan facing him, similarly armed. With lightning swiftness he struck for the youth's neck, a blow so powerful that it would have severed his head from his body. But Jan was faster than the savage, even though giddy. Avoiding the deadly blow by a quick step backward, he leaped in before the red man could recover. Jan's machete flashed once, and the Indian's hand, still clutching his weapon, flew into the undergrowth. Jan's blade flashed a second time and the savage fell to the ground with a fatal body wound, and died almost at once.

Jan gathered up the weapons of his fallen foe: a bow, a bundle of arrows, and a machete with belt and case. Then he and Chicma proceeded on through the forest. His wound was very painful, but not dangerous as the arrow had passed only through the muscles beneath his left arm without injuring any vital organs. When darkness came on, with the suddenness of the tropics, they perched themselves, supperless, in a tall tree for the night.

Rising with the sun the youth and the ape set out in search of breakfast and a drink of water. But it was not until half the day had passed that they found either. Then, suddenly emerging from the depths of the tangled jungle, they came upon both in satisfying abundance. They found themselves on the bank of a tiny stream, the water of which was clear and cold. Growing on both banks of this stream in profusion were oranges, pineapples and bananas.

Having drunk their fill of the sparkling water and satisfied their appetites with the fruit, they proceeded along the bank of the little stream. They had not gone far before Jan heard, ahead of them, a strange noise that made him uneasy. He looked quickly at Chicma to see if it had alarmed her, but she plodded along so unconcernedly that he decided it could not be anything of consequence.

The noise grew louder as they proceeded, until they came to a sheer cliff of bare rock towering more than two thousand feet above the jungle. Emerging from a hole in this rock about fifty feet above the level of the stream, was a small waterfall. Clear and limpid as crystal, it tumbled almost vertically into an oval pool.

Jan gasped with admiration at the beauty of this scene. He tried to explain his feelings to Chicma, but being tired and sleepy she only grunted and climbed a tall tree beside the pool to find a comfortable crotch for a nap. To her this was merely a place where food and drink might be had in abundance. Until the food gave out or the place became too dangerous here she would remain.

While Chicma took her nap, Jan practiced with his new weapons. While a prisoner of the hunters, he had often seen them use the bent stick with the string stretched across it. He found however, that it was far from being as easy as it looked. The bow was stiff, requiring all his strength to bend it, and the arrows seemed to strike anywhere but the place intended.

With the passing days, however, he mastered the weapon, though he had lost or broken most of his arrows in the meantime.

Chicma spent the greater part of her time dozing in the tree, only coming down for food or water, but Jan, always searching for something new, roamed away from the pool every day. For a long time he subsisted only on fruit, as did the ape, but growing within him, day by day, was the desire for meat, his favorite food.

One day he brought down a curassow with one of his arrows. Curious he cut into it with his machete. A slab of the turkey-like breast meat came away, and Jan, who had never tasted other than raw meat before his escape from Dr. Bracken, sampled it. Finding it good, he cut away and ate as much as he wanted, then took the rest back to the pool with him, hanging it in the tree to keep. But in the morning when he awoke, ravenous after his long sleep, he found it swarming with little white worms and giving forth an abominable stench. Disgusted, he hurled it far out into the jungle, and set forth after new meat.

The first animal to cross his path was an ocelot, the beautiful markings of which gave him the impression that its flesh must be delicious. Having wounded it with an arrow, he foolishly rushed to close quarters to finish it with his machete. But the fierce tiger cat, sorely wounded though it was, gave him a terrific battle, from which he did not fully recover for two weeks. And its meat, he found, was not nearly so good to eat as that of the dingy-colored curassow.

Day by day the youth learned the lessons that the jungle had to teach him. He learned to hunt with the silence and cunning of the jaguar, to travel among the branches and vines with the ease and facility of the monkeys, or to speed along the forest floor with the swiftness of the deer and the stealth of the panther.

Man, he found, was his natural enemy, and after several encounters in which he barely escaped with his life, he took to stalking the savages as he would jaguars or ocelots. Only a few escaped with their lives to tell of a red-headed jungle demon, half man, half jaguar, that shot at them from the trees and made off through the branches as easily as a monkey.

After two years he had not only learned many of the hardest lessons which the jungle has to teach, but had accumulated a small arsenal of weapons taken from the savages he had slain. There were a score of bows, more than a hundred arrows, a dozen long spears, five blow-guns with their deadly poison-tipped darts, and a miscellaneous assortment of steel and stone axes, machetes, knives, ornaments and trappings.

He had watched the birds building their nests and the natives their buts; and the idea had come to him to combine the two in the big tree in which he and Chicma slept. It proved a hard task indeed for his untutored hands, but after nearly a month of trials and tearings down, he completed a round, compact, rainproof tree-but about fifty feet above the ground, divided into two parts by a rude partition. On the floor of each "room" he made a nest of soft grass. The hut proved snug and dry, even during the heaviest of the tropical rains.

In this but he kept his weapons, ornaments and other treasures-bits of bright stone that he had picked up, teeth, claws, and sometimes bones of animals he had slain, bright feathers and plumes from the birds he had brought down, and a few odorous, badly cured hides.

Very often he bored Chicma by repeating the human words which Borno had taught him.

All this time he felt stirrings and yearnings for which he could not account. He was not content to make short journeys from the but, returning at nightfall; but took to wandering farther and farther away, sleeping in the trees at night. He was always discontented-searching for something, he knew not what, but always searching, always going farther and remaining away longer.

One morning when he was four days' journey from the but, he suddenly emerged from the jungle into a grove of trees that appeared most strange and unnatural to him. They grew in straight rows, evenly spaced almost to the very edge of a broad river. There was little undergrowth beneath them, and no rope-like lianas were draped among their branches.

Jan was puzzled. Stealthily he moved forward among the slender, straight trunks to investigate this unusual place. But he had riot gone more than a few steps before he saw something that caused him to stop and hastily dodge behind one of the tree trunks. To Jan, all strange humans were enemies, and he instinctively fitted a long arrow to his bowstring. But as he gazed at the creature coming toward him, something held his hand. This being was unlike any he had ever seen before and more lovely than the fairest jungle flower that had ever charmed his innate sense of beauty.

He gazed, spellbound, while the wonderous creature sat down on the moss beneath one of the trees, and leaning against it, opened what he thought was a basket of white leaves on which there were many strange little black tracks. Curious as he was about the basket with white leaves, he could not keep his eyes off the face above it. The being had dark-brown hair, as curly as Jan's own, tumbling just below the nape of a snow-white neck. The big brown eyes were half-veiled by the long, curling lashes, pink cheeks, and a tiny red mouth.

This creature, Jan thought, looked altogether too fragile to be dangerous and was, moreover, too beautiful to be destroyed. He relaxed his bowstring and was about to lower his arrow, when he suddenly caught sight of something which caused him to bring the arrow quickly back to the firing position. It was the flash, through a brilliant patch of sunlight, of a tawny, stealthily moving creature, larger than a jaguar and more formidable. The only beast in the menagerie which had resembled it was Terrible One, the lion, so Jan instinctively thought of it in those terms.

As the puma, a giant of his species, crept closer and closer, Jan, who had watched the hunting of these great cats many times in the jungle, became aware that it was stalking the lovely human he had been admiring. He could see the tip of the long, yellow tail twitching, the mighty muscles preparing for the swift charge which even the fastest of the jungle creatures seldom escapes. Jan foresaw the outcome-a lightning leap, a rending, bone-crushing blow from the huge paw, a crunch of the mighty jaws, and a limp and bloody victim being dragged away to some jungle lair to be devoured.

Many times Jan had seen these great cats bring down their prey, and never had he intervened to save the victim. But this victim was different. He could not bear to see that beauty marred-that frail body mangled and bleeding. Drawing the arrow back with all his strength, he took careful aim at the tawny shoulder, and let fly.

The arrow flew true to the mark, and the great carnivore, with a terrific roar of rage and pain, sprang out of its hiding place, straight for the girl it had marked for its prey.

But quick as was the puma, Jan was there before it, barring the way. His bow and arrows he had tossed aside, and his keen machete gleamed in his hand. Snarling furiously, the immense beast reared up on its hind legs-taller by a head than Jan-and slapped at him with a mighty paw. Jan dodged to one side, nearly severing the paw with his machete as he did so; and he would have been temporarily out of danger in another instant, had not his toe caught on a root, sending him sprawling.

Before he could make another move' the puma pounced upon him, sinking its great teeth into his left shoulder, shaking him as a cat shakes a mouse, and raking and gouging him with its terrible, sickle-like claws.

The youth felt his strength waning fast. He tried to use big machete, but his efforts seemed feeble, futile. He backed at the side of the monster's head again and again, cutting off an ear, blinding an eye, leaving nothing on one side but a bloody mass of mangled flesh and bone. But the powerful jaws would not relax their hold. The bulging; muscular neck continued to pivot that gory head as it swiftly shook Jan's limp body.

Jan had reached the limit of human endurance. It seemed to him that a great weight was crushing him, forcing the breath from his body. His machete dropped from his nerveless fingers, and merciful unconsciousness crept over him.

X. OUTSIDE THE WALLS
AT SIXTEEN Ramona Suarez was still something of a tomboy. She loved to mingle with the dark-skinned children and mongrel dogs of the laborers on her father's great rubber plantation. She took great delight in climbing trees, scaling walls and exploring thickets, to the despair of her doting old duenna, Senora Soledade. Her duenna scolded her, her mother, Dona Isabella, tried to reason with her, and her father, Don Fernando, who secretly chuckled over her escapades, tried to look stern when required to lecture her.

But they might as profitably have scolded the wind, reasoned with the rain cloud, or lectured the lightning. Ramona would listen dutifully, then, with a flash of white teeth and a shake of her dark brown ringlets; would romp away to hatch up some new deviltry.

Senora Soledade, corpulent and dignified, was of the opinion that the big patio, with its flowers shrubs and trees, winding walks; vine-clad arbors and bubbling fountains, was a large enough world for any girl. Charged with the duty of keeping Ramona always in sight, and taking the task in all seriousness, she was really able to do so only about half the time.

One day the old duenna was seated in the shade of an arbor in the patio, working on a bit of lace, and Ramona was busily engaged beneath a nearby orange tree with her English tutor, Arthur Morrison. Quite positive that her charge would not get away so long as the tutor was about, and drowsy from the mounting heat, the senora settled back comfortably in her chair, and with her hands folded over her ample equator, dozed.

But scarcely had she fallen asleep when the tutor, with a final charge to his pupil to study diligently, strolled away.

Ramona waited slyly until the tutor had entered the house. Then she peeked at the old lady, and saw that the coast was clear. Leaving her text-books, pencils and rulers beneath the orange tree, she picked up one of her favorite story books and climbed the tree.

At first it had been Ramona's intention to read the book in the tree, thus dumfounding the duenna when she should awaken; yet one side of the tree overhung the patio wall, giving her a new idea. Softly she let herself down from, a branch to the top of the wall, then, with the book gripped between her teeth, suspended herself by her hands on the other side, and dropped. She had attained the freedom she craved and she meant to make the most of it.

Tucking the book under her arm, she wandered off between the tall straight trunks of one of her father's young rubber groves until she came to the river bank. Then she sat down, leaned against a tree, and immersed herself in her book.

Ramona was an avid reader, and soon forgot her surroundings. But she was brought sharply back to reality by two sounds, one following the other in rapid succession: the twang of a bow-string and the roar of a mountain lion. For a moment she was paralyzed with fear and in that moment the great beast charged:

But quick as the puma had been, there was one who was quicker. Ramona was conscious for an instant of the lithe, auburn-haired youth who put himself between her and the charging death. Then for a moment things happened so swiftly that she could scarcely follow them-the roaring beast, the youth's swift and skillful slash that crippled one of the great paws, and his leap for safety, blocked by the projecting root.

The girl uttered a single, piercing scream as she saw her champion go down. Then she leaped to her feet, undecided for a moment whether to run for help or go to the assistance of her champion. She decided on the latter course, and looked around for a weapon.

Jan's bow and arrows lay where he had thrown them, and she caught them up. Fitting an arrow to the string, she aimed it at the heaving flank of the puma, and pulled. But the hardwood bow was very stiff, and even though Ramona exerted her utmost strength she could only draw the arrow back a few inches. As a result, it barely penetrated the tough skin with little more effect than the bite of a fly.

Seeing the futility of that, Ramona struck at the puma with the heavy boxy. But here, again her strength was not great enough to distract the attention of the huge feline. What could she do to save this handsome knight of the jungle who had come so gallantly to her rescue?

She knew that house-cats become greatly annoyed when their tails are pulled. Perhaps this also applied to the big cats of the jungle. She could only try.

Springing around to the rear, she seized the long tail with both hands, braced her feet, and pulled. At this instant, the snarling of the beast was stilled. She saw the machete fall from Jan's fingers-saw him go limp at the same moment that the puma, a final shiver running through its frame, sank heavily down on his senseless body.

Ramona leaped to one side and pulled. Gradually she was able to drag the great beast off the prostrate form of her champion. But the sharp teeth were still clamped into the bloody and lacerated shoulder. Picking up the machete, she pried the jaws apart.

Tenderly she raised the youth's head, placed it in her lap, and with her tiny handkerchief attempted to wipe away the blood. But the little square of lace proved quite inadequate, and she threw it away, soaked with blood, before more than a small part of one cheek had been cleansed.

The river was only about twenty feet away. Gently lowering his head from her lap, she dragged him to the water's edge. She ripped a panel of cloth from her white frock, and dipping it in the water, proceeded to bathe his face and wounded shoulder.

The cold water and the pressure of the cloth on Jan's wounds brought him to his senses. The blinding pain made him think for a moment that he was still in the grip of the puma. He tried to escape. Springing erect he knocked his little nurse flat in the mud.

For a moment he stood there, staring wildly down at her, while she gazed back in wide-eyed wonder and alarm. Then she smiled, a wistful little smile, and Jan, who in all the jungle had found no friends save Chicma and Borno, knew that he had found another.

He wanted to say something to her. But what? And how? It would be useless to bark at her in the chimpanzee language. He had tried that unsuccessfully on Borno and other humans. And the few words which Borno had taught him had quite vague meanings for him. However, they were human words, and this creature was undoubtedly human.

"I spik ze Engleesh," he announced, with Borno's accent, intently watching to see what effect his words would have.

She smiled again, and sprang lightly to her feet.

"I speak it, too," she said. 'My name is Ramona."

"My name Jan," he replied, and added naively, "Jan like you."

Before the girl, could reply the shrill voice of Senora Soledade called:

"Ramona!"

"Si, senora," she replied.

"Come here this instant!" was the command in Spanish, which of course Jan did not understand.

"I must go now, Jan. Goodby," said Ramona, and ran through the grove in the direction from which the voice had come.

Jan watched her until she disappeared from view. Then, with strange reluctance, he picked up his machete and his bow and arrows, and plunged off into the jungle. His wounds were very painful, especially his mangled shoulder. He must get to Chicma as soon as possible. She would lick them and make them well after the manner of ape mothers, as she had often licked the bloody welts inflicted by Cruel One, the doctor. But he was hot thinking of his wounds.

It had taken him only four days to reach the rubber plantation from their tree-hut, but that was when he was well and strong. Wounded and weakened by loss of blood, he was six days in making the return journey. By this time his wounds had closed and although they were still quite painful, Chicma showed no interest in them.

Recalling the soothing effect of the water with which Ramona had bathed his hurts he left the chimpanzee dozing in the tree-hut, 'and descending, waded into the pool beneath the waterfall. The cold water allayed the fever, and he paddled about for some time in the manner of a young puppy.

For two more weeks he divided his time between the tree-hut and the pool, doing no hunting, and living--on the fruits that abounded in, this earthly paradise. One day,-as he was paddling and splashing in the water, he discovered that by moving his hands and feet in a certain way he could keep afloat. Thrilled by this discovery, he tried again and again, until he was able to swim about the pool at will.

Interested in this new sport, he began to watch the manner in which other creatures of the jungle swam, and to imitate them. The four-legged animals, he noticed swam as he did, but the frogs did it in quite a different fashion. It was some time before he was able to duplicate their kicking stroke, but he mastered it eventually.

The frogs, he decided, were the really expert water creatures, and he attempted to imitate them further by entering the water as they did. His first dive was not a pronounced success, as forgetting his lesson on the ocean, he made the mistake of trying to breathe beneath the surface. Half-strangled, he quickly paddled to shore, and having coughed up most of the water, decided to try again.

It was not long before he learned to hold his breath and dive with the swift skill of the amphibians.

At first he only dived off the bank of the pool, but later he began practicing dives from higher points-a projecting ledge of rock, an overhanging limb. Once his foot slipped and he fell from a considerable height, alighting flat with a loud smack that all but knocked the wind from him. This taught him that the water could be very soft or very hard, according to the way one fell. After that, he took care to cleave it cleanly and gracefully.

One day, when his wounds were healed and he was beginning to feel the urge of the jungle trails, he dived from one of the lower boughs of the tree in which his but was situated. The force of the dive carried him clear up behind the curtain of tumbling waters-a place he had not previously explored. He drew himself up onto a jagged, rocky ledge and sat there for some time, listening to the roar of the falls and admiring the thin sheet of water with the faint light filtering through it.

Presently, as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light of the place, he made out, high above him, two figures so strikingly manlike in form that he started and involuntarily clutched the hilt of his sheathed machete-without which he seldom ventured anywhere. In a moment he saw that they were not men, but harmless images of stone with manlike bodies and grotesque faces, one of which resembled that of a hawk, and the other that of a dog. He also noticed that leading up the face of the cliff to the ledge on which they stood, were a number of notches cut deeply into the stone.

Springing to his feet, he climbed rapidly upward by means of the notches, and drew himself up on the ledge. Here a new surprise awaited him, for be saw that the two grotesque statues guarded the mouth of a dark passageway which extended into the solid rock beneath the waterfall.

His curiosity aroused, Jan cautiously entered the passageway. It led straight into the cliff for about fifteen feet, then veered to the right and upward. As soon as he made the turn, he was in total darkness and was compelled to grope his way forward.

The passageway leveled out, presently, and turned sharply to the left.

Still groping in inky blackness, Jan discovered, by the murmur of water beside the pathway, that he was walking on the bank of an underground stream. A walk of about ten minutes brought him to a point where dim light filtered into the cavern. It came from just above the surface of the water, where the cavern roof dipped, arching over it at a height of only a few inches. Here the path he had been following led straight into the water.

Jan paused here for a moment undecided whether to go on or to retrace his steps. But his insatiable curiosity won out and he waded into the water. The bank sloped steeply, and he was soon swimming against the swift current.

When he reached the point from which the light emanated he was forced to turn on his back in order to keep his nose above water, because of the narrow space between the cavern roof and the surface of the stream.

Suddenly he shot out into the bright sunlight. Turning over, he looked about him and saw that he was in the middle of a narrow river, which apparently flowed straight into the solid-rock. A few swift strokes took him to shore. He climbed the high bank, and when he reached the top, stopped in sudden amazement at what he saw. For he stood before the ruins of an immense building, the remaining walls of which were covered with gigantic bas-reliefs depicting strange, angular-looking human beings, some with heads like birds or animals, some with beards that reminded him of the detested Dr. Bracken, and some with not unhandsome human features. They seemed to be engaged in fighting each other, or in hunting strange beasts or birds.

Some of the tall columns of the facade were still standing, supporting fragments of ornamental cornices. Others had fallen and broken into cylindrical sections.

Guarding the portal of this strange edifice, on either side, were two colossal statues with bodies that were human in form, but one had a face like a hawk's and the other like that of a dog. They resembled the two statues he had seen beneath the waterfall, but were much larger.

Leading to this portal were the remains of a paved avenue now broken and weed-grown. Along each side of this highway was a row of pedestals, on some of which stood statues of grotesque monster, half beast, half human. Others had fallen or been overturned, and their cracked and shattered fragments were strewn about among the weeds and broken fragments of paving slabs.

Thrilled with awe and wonder at these strange sights, Jan was slowly advancing toward the portal when he caught the guarded movement of something creeping toward him in the undergrowth at his right. He whipped out his machete and paused, watching breathlessly. Then he saw another movement as something passed through the undergrowth on his left.

Suddenly two great shaggy creatures bounded out onto the sparsely grown avenue and closed in on him. They were manlike and yet apelike in form with long bushy beards and hairy bodies. One brandished a huge club menacingly, while the other hurled a large rock fragment straight at the boy's head.

Jan managed to dodge the missile, and turned to flee. But he had not taken more than a dozen leaps when a third hairy monster sprang in front of him, barring his progress, and swung for his head with a heavy cudgel.

XI. THE JUNGLE DEMON
WHEN SHE SAW the bedraggled and blood-soaked condition of her charge, Ramona's old duenna threw up her hands and shrieked in holy terror. Ramona's dress was smeared with mud in the back and with blood in front The cloth which she had ripped away to use for binding Jan's wounds left a rent that exposed the peach-tinted silk clinging to her trim little figure, which was also considerably spotted with gore.

Don Fernando, who had been walking in the patio nearby, smoking one of his long, slim cigars, came dashing up just as Senora Soledade swooned away.

"Carramba!" he exclaimed, dropping his cigar and catching Ramona in his arms, to the detriment of his immaculate white suit. "Tell me what has happened, my little one! Where are you hurt?"

"I'm not hurt, daddy," replied Ramona, "but Senora Soledade has fainted."

"Not hurt! But this blood! These soiled, torn clothes! I don't understand!"

"It is not my blood, daddy. It's Jan's. He saved me from the puma."

"Madre de Dios! Jan? The puma? What is all this? Tell me, quickly, or I, too, shall collapse!"

"But first let us attend the senora."

At this moment, Senora Soledade sat up and gazed wildly about her.

Don Fernando stood his daughter on her feet, and gallantly hurried forward to help the old lady. But when she saw the blood on his white suit she shrieked, and seemed about to swoon again.

"Come, come," he said. "Be brave. Ramona is all right and so am I."

"But the blood! The-"

"There, there!"

He piloted her gently through the patio gate, seated her on a bench, and returned.

"Now child," he said. "This puma. This Jan. Tell me about them."

"Come with me and I'll show you the puma," she answered. "It's dead."

She related the story of her adventure to her father, as she led him to where the dead carnivore lay. Don Fernando listened gravely to her story, and examined the fallen feline with interest.

"A giant of its kind, that beast," he said. "A terrible foe. And you say it was slain by a mere boy?"

"I didn't say a mere boy," replied Ramona reprovingly. "He was magnificent."

"Yes, of course my little one. A gallant knight who came to your rescue. But for him I would have lost you." He threw his arm around her and drew her close. "I wish I could reward him."

"And why can't you?"

"Your description of him... Do you know who he is?"

"To be sure. He is Jan. He told me so."

"Yes, but your description of him: red hair, a garment of jaguar skin. He is the wild boy who has slain so many natives during the past two years. Many strange tales have been told about him. When first seen he had two companions--a giant black man and a great hairy ape. Both of these wore jaguar-skin garments, also. They terrorized a small Indian community, killing several. Since then the boy has been seen once or twice with the great ape, but mostly be travels alone. No one knows what has become of the black giant. Do you know what they call this boy?"

"No."

"They call him the jungle Demon. Some say he is half man, half jaguar. He travels with equal facility on the ground or through the tree tops. When an Indian is found dead, stripped of his weapons and ornaments, they say: 'It is the jungle Demon again.' He is more fierce, more terrible and more dangerous than the puma he has slain. All men are his enemies."

"But he said he liked me."

"Carramba! Did he? Then promise me this: that you will never leave the house or patio again unless I or one of the men go with you, armed. Some day he will come to steal you-to carry you off to his jungle lair to a horrible fate. It would be a terrible blow to your mother and me, and to poor old Senora Soledade. Won't you do this much for us? Won't you promise?"

Don Fernando had long since learned that threats or commands meant nothing to Ramona, but that she could be appealed to in a reasonable manner, and that if she made a promise, that promise would be carried out.

"I don't know, daddy," she answered. "I so love to get away by myself once in a while."

"Yes, I know. But think of the danger. And think of your mother and father, and of your old duenna, who loves you."

"All right daddy, I'll promise."

And so they went into the patio, arm in arm.

As the first man-monster of the ruined temple struck at him with his cudgel, Jan, who had often dodged the swift blow of a jaguar's paw, easily eluded his clumsy swing. The force of the blow turned the hairy one part way around. Jan leaped in and dealt him a blow on the back of his neck with the keen machete. The monster fell on his face without a sound, his spinal column severed by the sharp blade.

With savage yells the other two closed in to avenge their fallen comrade, but Jan was already running swiftly toward the river.

Sheathing his weapon, he sprang from the top of the bank, in a long, graceful dive. He swam frog-like beneath the surface until a shadow above him told him that he had entered the underground channel. Then he arose and, turning on his back, inhaled the welcome air.

As he drew himself up on the bank in the semidarkness, he hesitated for a moment. These men were deadly enemies. Being bearded like Dr. Bracken and the brutal Jake Grubb on the ship, they were doubly hateful. He wanted to go back-to stalk and slay them.

But the jungle, his jungle, was calling. Already he was longing to swing through its sun-dappled branches and lianas again, and tread the soft leaf mold in its deeper shadows. And' beyond the jungle was a beautiful being-Ramona.

Jan groped his way back to the falls. Then he descended the notched cut in the cliff, dived through the curtain of water into the pool, and came up beneath his tree-hut. Shaking the water from his glistening body, he climbed up and found Chicma dozing peacefully in her compartment. She gave a little grunt of greeting as he looked in, then went to sleep once more.

As time went on she had been paying less and less attention to his comings and goings. No longer did she romp with him in mimic combat, or play at tag with him through the tree tops. She liked her soft nest, and rarely left it except when urged by hunger or thirst. Chicma was getting very old.

Jan took up his favorite bow and a well-filled quiver of arrows, and left. As he plunged into his jungle, it was good to feel the soft leaf mold under his bare feet, the cool leaves brushing against his face and body.

He was meat-hungry, and his archery soon won him an unwary curassow. Having eaten, he hurried onward with a fixed purpose-to reach; as soon as possible, the place where he had found Ramona. With Borno gone and Chicma become grouchy and unsociable, he longed for the companionship of a friend. And Ramona was the only other living creature who had shown friendship for him.

She attracted him, too, in a different way from the others. At thought of her his pulse would quicken in a manner quite impossible to explain.

He shortened what had been a four-day journey to three. Arriving at the edge of Don Fernando's grove of young rubber trees, he hurried to the place where he had last seen her. But he found only the gnawed bones of the puma.

Recalling the direction in which she had gone when called, he went that way and eventually arrived at the patio gate. It was made from heavy planks which fitted a high-arched gateway. He looked through a crack between two planks and saw the object of his quest, seated beneath a tree and holding before her the basket of white leaves with little black tracks on them.

Jan knew nothing of the mechanism of the gate, and the smooth, plastered surface of the high patio wall offered no opportunity for a finger hold, but he observed that a branch of the tree under which the girl was sitting overhung the wall near a branch of a rubber tree outside. This made a clear path for the jungle-trained Jan.

Hearing a slight sound in the tree above her, Ramona was about to cry out in fear, but she stifled the sound when her knight-errant dropped softly beside her.

"Jan!" she whispered. "You startled me!

"Come see you," he responded. "Jan like you."

"Shh! Not so loud. You will wake my duenna."

"Jan don' understan'," he said, imitating her low tones.

She rose, and drew aside the branch of a bushy shrub, one of a clump. Just behind it he saw a short and very round woman in black, seated in a gaudily striped lawn chair with her hands folded in her lap, snoring quite audibly. The thought flashed to his mind that this must be some deadly enemy of Ramona's. With a low growl he whipped his bow and arrow from the quiver, and took quick aim at the old lady.

The horrified girl caught his hand.

"No, no! You must not hurt her! She is my friend. She loves me. But she must not know that you are here with me."

Puzzled, the youth replaced bow and arrow in his quiver.

"Jan try understan'," he whispered.

She laid a hand on his arm.

"Sit here beside me," she said, "so you will not be seen. Then, if we talk quietly, no one will know that you are here, and perhaps you may come again."

They talked for nearly half an hour, Jan asking questions in his limited broken English aided by the universal language of signs and Ramona trying to explain things to him. He asked her about the little basket of white leaves covered with many black tracks, and she told him the little tracks talked to her. She told him the basket was called a "book," and that the tracks were called "letters," while groups of tracks were called "words."

At the end of a half hour Ramona said:

"You must go now, Jan. As soon as Senora Soledade finishes her siesta she will look for me and I don't want her to see you. Come tomorrow at this time, and I will be here."

Jan left without protest, going over the wall as he had come. Once in the jungle, he shot a peccary, ate his fill, drank deeply at the river, and crept beneath the roots of a ceiba to dream of a pair of lustrous brown eyes.

And Ramona, having sent him away, was thrilled by her power over 'this handsome youth who, though he was a mighty slayer of fierce beasts and savage men, obeyed her, lightest request without question.

XII. IN A SERPENT'S COILS
ON THE following day, and for many days thereafter, Jan met Ramona beneath the tree in the garden. As she had made it plain that she did not want these meetings known, he always came and went with the utmost caution. The hollow beneath the roots of the ceiba tree became his home. The fruit and game of the nearby jungle supplied him with ample food.

On the second day, Don Fernando, walking in the patio with his spotless white suit and smoking his long, slim cigar, had a narrow escape from death when Ramona stopped Jan just in time as he was preparing to launch an arrow. Gradually she was able to make him understand, how dear her father, mother and duenna were to her, and that her tutor and the servants were friends who must not be slain or injured.

Much of the time she spent in tutoring him. Jan was an eager pupil, and mastered the alphabet in a few days. Then he tackled an English reader. Ramona's parents, having been educated in the United States, she was able to correct Jan's accent.

He was particularly interested in her books on natural history. Many animals he recognized at once by their pictures, having seen them in the jungle. He marveled at the pictures of the mighty prehistoric monsters, saying he wished he could meet and overcome some of them in battle. He was quite disappointed when Ramona told him they were all dead.

Jan was greatly attracted, too, by Ramona's writing and drawing materials. For many days, he watched her sketch. Then, one day, she gave him pencil, paper, and drawing board, and found that, without training, he could do almost as well as she. His greatest delight was to copy the pictures in the natural history books, labeling each sketch with its correct name which, having once learned, he never forgot.

Each day Jan brought some offering from the jungle for his little goddess. He sought out the rarest orchids and the most luscious fruits and berries. Once, after art encounter with a Carib native, he brought her a necklace of jaguar teeth. But she did not dare to keep it, much to his disappointment.

Jan noticed that she had in the palm of her right hand, a blue tracing of a many-petaled flower. One day, with pen and ink, he traced a similar flower in his own palm. But to his surprise, the ink soon rubbed off. He tried to find out what made hers stay, but she, didn't know. The mark had been there always-.as long as she could remember.

One afternoon Jan was drawing, using a sharp, flexible pen and India ink, when he accidentally pricked his finger. The next morning he noticed a little blue spot where the wound had been. When, after a lapse of several days, the spot remained, he began to trace a blue flower in his own palm in this manner. The work took some time, and cost him a sore hand for a while, but he ended by having a permanent tattoo mark almost identical with that of Ramona, and was delighted with the result.

As soon as he had learned sufficient English, Jan told Ramona about his early life in the menagerie, and of Dr. Bracken, whom he called "Cruel One." He was amazed and deeply relieved when Ramona told him that it was impos