and then he briefly narrated all that was known of the disappearance of Lafayette Smith.
'Was he armed?' asked the ape-man.
'He thought he was.'
'What do you mean?'
'He packed a shiny toy pistol, what if anybody ever shot me with it, and I found it out, I'd turn him over my knee and spank him.'
'It might serve him in getting food,' said Tarzan, 'and that will be of more importance to him than anything else. He's not in much danger, except from men and starvation. Where's your camp?'
Danny nodded toward the south. 'Back there about a thou sand miles,' he said.
'You'd better go to it and remain there where he can find you if he can make his way back to it, and where I can find you if I locate him.'
'I want to help you hunt for him. He's a good guy, even if he is legitimate.'
'I can move faster alone,' replied the ape-man. 'If you start out looking for him I'll probably have to find you, too.'
The 'Gunner' grinned. 'I guess you aint so far off, at that,' he replied. 'All right, I'll beat it for camp and wait there for you. You know where our camp is at?'
'I'll find out,' replied Tarzan and turned to Obambi to whom he put a few questions in the native Bantu dialect of the black. Then he turned again to the 'Gunner.' 'I know where your camp is now. Watch out for these fellows from that village, and don't let your men wander very far from the protection of your machine gun.'
'Why,' demanded Danny, 'what are them guys?'
'They are robbers, murderers, and slave raiders,' replied Tarzan.
'Geeze,' exclaimed the 'Gunner,' 'they's rackets even in Africa , aint they?'
'I do not know what a racket is,' replied the ape-man, 'but there is crime wherever there are men, and nowhere else.' He turned then, without word of parting, and started upward toward the mountains.
'Geeze!' muttered the 'Gunner.' 'That guy aint so crazy about men.'
'What, bwana?' asked Obambi.
'Shut up,' admonished Danny.
The afternoon was almost spent when the 'Gunner' and Obambi approached camp. Tired and footsore as he was the white man had, none the less, pushed rapidly along the backtrail lest night descend upon them before they reached their destination, for Danny, in common with most city-bred humans, bad discovered something peculiarly depressing and awe-inspiring in the mysterious sounds and silences of the nocturnal wilds. He wished the fires and companionship of men after the sun had set. And so the two covered the distance on the return in much less time than had been consumed in traversing it originally.
As he came in sight of the camp the brief twilight of the tropics had already fallen, the cooking fires were burning, and to a trained eye a change would have been apparent from the appearance of the camp when he had left it early that morning; but Danny's eyes were trained in matters of broads, bulls, and beer trucks and not in the concerns of camps and safaris; so, in the failing light of dusk, he did not notice that there were more men in camp than when he had left, nor that toward the rear of it there were horses tethered where no horses had been before.
The first intimation he had of anything unusual came from Obambi. 'White men are in the camp, bwana,' said the black—'and many horses. Perhaps they found the mad bwana and brought him back.'
'Where do you see any white men?' demanded the 'Gunner.'
'By the big fire in the center of camp, bwana,' replied Obambi.
'Geeze, yes, I see 'em now,' admitted Danny. 'They must have found old Smithy all right; but I don't see him, do you?'
'No, bwana, but perhaps he is in his tent.'
The appearance of Patrick and Obambi caused a commotion in the camp that was wholly out of proportion to its true significance. The white men leaped to their feet and drew their revolvers while strange blacks, in response to the commands of one of these, seized rifles and stood nervously alert.
'You don't have to throw no fit,' called Danny, 'it's only me and Obambi.'
The white men were advancing to meet him now, and the two parties halted face to face near one of the fires. It was then that the eyes of one of the two strange white men alighted on the Thompson submachine gun. Raising his revolver he covered Danny.
'Put up your hands!' he commanded sharply.
'Wotell?' demanded the 'Gunner,' but he put them up as every sensible man does when thus invited at the business end of a pistol.
'Where is the ape-man?' asked the stranger.
'What ape-man? What you talkin' about? What's your racket?'
'You know who I mean—Tarzan,' snapped the other. The 'Gunner' glanced quickly about the camp. He saw his own men herded under guard of villainous looking blacks in long robes that had once been white; he saw the horses tethered Just beyond them; he saw nothing of Lafayette Smith. The training and the ethics of gangland controlled him on the instant. 'Don't know the guy,' he replied sullenly.
'You were with him today,' snarled the bearded white. 'You fired on my village.'
'Who, me?' inquired the 'Gunner' innocently. 'You got me wrong, mister. I been hunting all day. I aint seen no one. I aint fired at nothing. Now it's my turn. What are you guys doin' here with this bunch of Ku Klux Klanners? If it's a stick up, hop to it; and get on your way. You got the drop on us, and they aint no one to stop you. Get it over with. I'm hungry and want to feed.'
'Take the gun away from him,' said Capietro, in Galla, to one of his men, 'also his pistol,' and there was nothing for Danny 'Gunner' Patrick, with his hands above his head, to do but submit. Then they sent Obambi, under escort, to be herded with the other black prisoners and ordered the 'Gunner' to accompany them to the large fire that blazed in front of Smith's tent and his own.
'Where is your companion?' demanded Capietro.
'What companion?' inquired Danny.
'The man you have been travelling with,' snapped the Italian. 'Who else would I mean?'
'Search me,' replied the 'Gunner.'
'What you mean by that? You got something concealed upon your person?'
'If you mean money, I aint got none.'
'You did not answer my question,' continued Capietro.
'What question?'
'Where is your companion?'
'I aint got none.'
'Your headman told us there were two of you. What is your name?'
'Bloom,' replied Danny.
Capietro looked puzzled. 'The headman said one of you was Smith and the other Patrick.'
'Never heard of 'em,' insisted Danny. 'The guy must of been stringin' you. I'm here alone, hunting, and my name's Bloom.'
'And you didn't see Tarzan of the Apes today?'
'Never even heard of a guy with that monacker.'
'Either he's lying to us,' said Stabutch, 'or it was the other one who fired on the village.'
'Sure, it must of been two other fellows,' Danny assured them. 'Say, when do I eat?'
'When you tell us where Tarzan is,' replied Stabutch.
'Then I guess I don't eat,' remarked Danny. 'Geeze, didn't I tell you I never heard of the guy? Do you think I know every monkey in Africa by his first name? Come on now, what's your racket? If we got anything you want, take it and screw. I'm sick lookin' at your mugs.'
'I do not understand English so well,' whispered Capietro to Stabutch. 'I do not always know what he says.'
'Neither do I,' replied the Russian; 'but I think he is lying to us. Perhaps he is trying to gain time until his companion and Tarzan arrive.'
'That is possible,' replied Capietro in his normal voice.
