EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
as possible. Believing this, the ape-man followed back along the trail of the blacks, expecting momentarily to meet von Harben.
This plan greatly reduced his speed, but even so he traveled with so much greater rapidity than the blacks that he came to the slopes of the Wiramwazi upon the third day after he had interviewed the remnants of von Harben’s safari.
It was with great difficulty that he finally located the point at which von Harben had been abandoned by his men, as a heavy rain and wind-storm had obliterated the trail, but at last he stumbled upon the tent, which had blown down, but nowhere could he see any signs of von Harben’s trail.
Not having come upon any signs of the white man in the jungle or any indication that he had followed his fleeing safari, Tarzan was forced to the conclusion that if von Harben was not indeed dead he must have faced the dangers of the unknown alone and now be either dead or alive somewhere within the mysterious fastnesses of the Wiramwazi.
“Nkima,” said the ape-man, “the Tarmangani have a saying that when it is futile to search for a thing, it is like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Do you believe, Nkima, that in this great mountain range we shall find our needle?”
“Let us go home,” said Nkima, “where it is warm. Here the wind blows and up there it is colder. It is no place for little Manu, the monkey.”
“Nevertheless, Nkima, there is where we are going.”
The monkey looked up toward the frowning heights above. “Little Nkima is afraid,” he said. “It is in such places that Sheeta, the panther, lairs.”
Ascending diagonally and in a westerly direction in the hope of crossing von Harben’s trail, Tarzan moved constantly in the opposite direction from that taken by the man he sought. It was his intention, however, when he reached the summit, if he had in the meantime found no trace of von Harben, to turn directly eastward and search at a higher altitude in the opposite direction. As he proceeded, the slope became steeper and more rugged until at one point near the western end of the mountain mass he encountered an almost perpendicular barrier high up on the mountainside
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