The Return of Tarzan | Page 5

he did do that night within
the little railway station in the far Wisconsin woods. To him her
happiness was the first consideration of all, and his brief experience
with civilization and civilized men had taught him that without money
and position life to most of them was unendurable.
Jane Porter had been born to both, and had Tarzan taken them away
from her future husband it would doubtless have plunged her into a life
of misery and torture. That she would have spurned Clayton once he
had been stripped of both his title and his estates never for once
occurred to Tarzan, for he credited to others the same honest loyalty
that was so inherent a quality in himself. Nor, in this instance, had he
erred. Could any one thing have further bound Jane Porter to her
promise to Clayton it would have been in the nature of some such
misfortune as this overtaking him.
Tarzan's thoughts drifted from the past to the future. He tried to look
forward with pleasurable sensations to his return to the jungle of his
birth and boyhood; the cruel, fierce jungle in which he had spent
twenty of his twenty-two years. But who or what of all the myriad
jungle life would there be to welcome his return? Not one. Only Tantor,
the elephant, could he call friend. The others would hunt him or flee
from him as had been their way in the past.
Not even the apes of his own tribe would extend the hand of fellowship
to him.
If civilization had done nothing else for Tarzan of the Apes, it had to
some extent taught him to crave the society of his own kind, and to feel
with genuine pleasure the congenial warmth of companionship. And in
the same ratio had it made any other life distasteful to him. It was
difficult to imagine a world without a friend--without a living thing
who spoke the new tongues which Tarzan had learned to love so well.
And so it was that Tarzan looked with little relish upon the future he

had mapped out for himself.
As he sat musing over his cigarette his eyes fell upon a mirror before
him, and in it he saw reflected a table at which four men sat at cards.
Presently one of them rose to leave, and then another approached, and
Tarzan could see that he courteously offered to fill the vacant chair, that
the game might not be interrupted. He was the smaller of the two whom
Tarzan had seen whispering just outside the smoking-room.
It was this fact that aroused a faint spark of interest in Tarzan, and so as
he speculated upon the future he watched in the mirror the reflection of
the players at the table behind him. Aside from the man who had but
just entered the game Tarzan knew the name of but one of the other
players. It was he who sat opposite the new player, Count Raoul de
Coude, whom at over-attentive steward had pointed out as one of the
celebrities of the passage, describing him as a man high in the official
family of the French minister of war.
Suddenly Tarzan's attention was riveted upon the picture in the glass.
The other swarthy plotter had entered, and was standing behind the
count's chair. Tarzan saw him turn and glance furtively about the room,
but his eyes did not rest for a sufficient time upon the mirror to note the
reflection of Tarzan's watchful eyes. Stealthily the man withdrew
something from his pocket. Tarzan could not discern what the object
was, for the man's hand covered it.
Slowly the hand approached the count, and then, very deftly, the thing
that was in it was transferred to the count's pocket. The man remained
standing where he could watch the Frenchman's cards. Tarzan was
puzzled, but he was all attention now, nor did he permit another detail
of the incident to escape him.
The play went on for some ten minutes after this, until the count won a
considerable wager from him who had last joined the game, and then
Tarzan saw the fellow back of the count's chair nod his head to his
confederate. Instantly the player arose and pointed a finger at the count.
"Had I known that monsieur was a professional card sharp I had not

been so ready to be drawn into the game," he said.
Instantly the count and the two other players were upon their feet.
De Coude's face went white.
"What do you mean, sir?" he cried. "Do you know to whom you
speak?"
"I know that I speak, for the last time, to one who cheats at cards,"
replied the fellow.
The count leaned across the table, and struck the man full in