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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 12, 1916)
THE SUNDAY FICTION MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 12, 1910 noireloss corning of the great carnivore upon his trail; to hunt and to be hunted; to kill! The picture was allurine. And then came another picture a sweet-faced woman, Btill young: and beautiful; friends; a home; a son. He shrugged his giant shoulders. "It cannot be, Akut," he said; "but If you would return, I shall see that it la done. You could not be happy here I may not be happy there." The trainer stepped forward. The ape , bared his fangs, growling. "Go with him, Akut," said Tarzan of the Apes. "I will come and see you to ! morrow." Xhe beast moved sullenly to the train er's side." The latter, at John Clayton's request, told where they might be found. Tarzan turned toward his son. "Come!" he said, and the two left the theater. Neither spoke for several min utes after they had entered the lim ousine." It was the boy who broke the silence. "The .ape knew you," he said, "and you spoke together in the ape's tongue. : How did the ape know you, and how did you learn his language?" And then, briefly, and for the first time, Tarzan of the Apes told his son of his. early life of his birth in the jungle, of the death of his parents, and of how Kala, the great she-ape, had suckled and raised him from infancy almost to man hood. He told him, too, of the dangers and the horrors of the Jungle of the great i beasts that stalked one by day and by night; of the periods of drought, and of i the cataclysmic rains; of hunger; of cold; of Intense heat; of naked nesaSand ; fear and suffering. He told him of all those things that seem most horrible to the crea ', ture of civilization in the hope that i the knowledge of them might ex punge from the lad's mind any in herent desire for the jungle. Yet father's breast had not been transmitted to his son. . Tarzan visited Akut the following day, but though Jack begged to be allowed to accompany him, he was refused. This time Tarzan saw the . pock-marked old owner of the ape,. whom he did not recognize as the wily Paulvltch of former days. Tarxan, influ enced by Akut's plead ings, broached the ques tion of the ape's pur chase; but Paulvltch would not name " any price, saying that he would consider the mat ter. " When Tarzan re turned home Jack was all excitement to hear the details of his visit, and finally suggested that his father buy' the . ape and bring it home. Lady Greystoke was j horrified at the sugges The boy was in sistent. Tarzan ex- plained that he had wished to purchase Akut and return Africa had eradicated the last vestige of niceness from his habits. His ap parel was wrinkled and soiled. His hands'were un washed, his few straggling i ill Ji i ' llPif.'P h ; 11' IP II :ll in 1) I I JP ,,: : ' . PA r niiw'i kiwi composite Presently He clambered over into the box with the boy and snuggled down close to his side. they were the very things that made the memory of the jungle what it was to Tarzan that made up the jungle life he loved. And in the telling he forgot one thing: the principal thing that the boy at his Bide, listening so eagerly, was the sen of Tarzan of the Apes. t AFTER the boy had been tucked away in bed and without the threatened punishment John "Clayton told his wife of the events of the evening, and that he had at last acquainted the boy with the facts of his jungle life. The mother, who had long foreseen that "her son. must some time know of those frightful years during which his father had roamed the jungle, a naked, savage beast of prey, - shook her head, hoping against hope that the lure she knew was still strong in the him to his jungle home, and to this the mother assented. Jack asked to be al lowed to visit the ape, but again he was met with flat refusal. He had the address, however, which the trainer had given his father; and two days later he found the opportunity to elude his new tutor who had replaced the terrified Mr. Moore and after a con siderable search through a. section of " London which he had never before visit ed, he found the smelly little quarters of the pock-marked old man. The old. fellow himself replied to the knocking, and when Jack stated that he had come to see Ajax. opened the door and admitted him to the little room which he and the great ape occupied. In former years Paulvltch had been a fastidious scoundrel; but ten years of hideous life among the cannibals of locks uncombed. His room was a jumble of filthy disorder. As the boy entered he saw the great ape squatting upon the bed, the coverlets of which were a tan gled wad of filthy blankets and lil-amell-lng quilts. At sight of the youth the ape Jeaped to the floor and shuffled forward. The man, not recognizing his visitor, and fearing that the ape meant mischief, ' stepped between them, ordering the ape back to the bed. . "He will not hurt me," cried the boy. "We are friends, and before, Jie was my father's friend. They knew one another in the jungle.. My father is Lord Grey stoke. He does not know, that I have come here. My mother forbade my com ing;, but I, wished to see Ajax. and I will pay you if you will let me come here often and see him." At the mention of the boy's identity Paulvitch's eyes narrowed. Since he had first Seen Tarzan again from the wings of (he theater there had been forming in his deadened brain the beginning of a desire for revenge. n It is a characteristic! of the weak and criminal to attribute to others the mis fortunes that are the result of their own wickedness, and so now it was that Alexis Paulvltch was slowly recalling the events of his post life, and as he did so, laying at the door of the man whom he' and Rokoff had eo assiduously at tempted to rain and murder all the mis fortunes that had befallen him In the failure of their, various schemes' against their Intended victims. He saw at first no way in which he .could, with safety to himself, wreak vengeance upon Tarzan through the me dium1 of Tarzan's son: bat that great possibilities for revenge lay in the boy' was apparent to him, and so he deter ( Continued on Page It)