Tarzan and the Lion-Man

'Think Marcus can stand it? He's getting along in years.'

'Oh, he's rarin' to go. Major White, here, is taking the part of a white hunter.'

'I'm afraid,' remarked the major, 'that as an actor I'll prove to be an excellent hunter.'

'Oh, all you got to do is act natural. Don't worry.'

'No, let the director worry,' said the scenarist; 'that's what he's paid for.'

'And rewritin' bum continuity,' retorted Orman. 'But say, Milt, gettin' back to Naomi. She's great in cabaret scenes and flaming youth pictures, but when it comes to steppin' out with lions and elephants—I don't know.'

'We're sendin' Rhonda Terry along to double for her.'

'Good! Rhonda'd go up and bite a lion on the wrist if a director told her to; and she does look a lot like the Madison, come to think of it.'

'Which is flatterin' the Madison, if any one asks me,' commented the scenarist.

'Which no one did,' retorted Smith.

'And again, if any one asks me,' continued Joe, 'Rhonda can act circles all around Madison. How some of these punks get where they are beats me.'

'And you hangin' around studios for the last ten years!' scoffed Orman. 'You must be dumb.'

'He wouldn't be an author if he wasn't,' gibed another conferee.

'Well,' asked Orman, 'who else am I takin'? Who's my chief cameraman?'

'Bill West.'

'Fine.'

'What with your staff, the cast, and drivers you'll have between thirty-five and forty whites. Besides the generator truck and the two sound trucks, you'll have twenty five-ton trucks and five passenger cars. We're picking technicians and mechanics who can drive trucks so as to cut down the size of the company as much as possible. I'm sorry you weren't in town to pick your own company, but we had to rush things. Every one's signed up but the assistant director. You can take any one along you please.'

'When do we leave?'

'In about ten days.'

'It's a great life,' sighed Orman. 'Six months in Borneo, ten days in Hollywood, and then another six months in Africa! You guys give a fellow just about time to get a shave between trips.'

'Between drinks, did you say?' inquired Joe.

'Between drinks!' offered another. 'There isn't any between drinks in Tom's young life.'

Chapter Two Mud

Sheykh ab EL-GHRENNEM and his swarthy followers sat in silence on their ponies and watched the mad Nasara sweating and cursing as they urged on two hundred blacks in an effort to drag a nine-ton generator truck through the muddy bottom of a small stream.

Nearby, Jerrold Baine leaned against the door of a muddy touring car in conversation with the two girls who occupied the back seat.

'How you feeling, Naomi?' he inquired.

'Rotten.'

'Touch of fever again?'

'Nothing but since we left Jinja. I wish I was back in Hollywood ; but I won't ever see Hollywood again. I'm going to die here.'

'Aw, shucks! You're just blue. You'll be all right.'

'She had a dream last night,' said the other girl. 'Naomi believes in dreams.'

'Shut up,' snapped Miss Madison.

'You seem to keep pretty fit, Rhonda,' remarked Baine.

Rhonda Terry nodded. 'I guess I'm just lucky.'

'You'd better touch wood,' advised the Madison; then she added, 'Rhonda's physical, purely physical. No one knows what we artistes suffer, with our high-strung, complex, nervous organizations.'

'Better be a happy cow than a miserable artiste,' laughed Rhonda.

'Beside that, Rhonda gets all the breaks,' complained Naomi. 'Yesterday they shoot the first scene in which I appear, and where was I? Flat on my back with an attack of fever, and Rhonda has to double for me—even in the close-ups.'

'It's a good thing you look so much alike,' said Baine. 'Why, knowing you both as well as I do, I can scarcely tell you apart.'

'That's the trouble,' grumbled Naomi. 'People'll see her and think it's me.'

'Well, what of it?' demanded Rhonda. 'You'll get the credit.'

'Credit!' exclaimed Naomi. 'Why, my dear, it will ruin my reputation. You are a sweet girl and all that, Rhonda; but remember, I am Naomi Madison. My public expects superb acting. They will be disappointed, and they will blame me.'

Rhonda laughed good-naturedly. 'I'll do my best not to entirely ruin your reputation, Naomi,' she promised.

'Oh, it isn't your fault,' exclaimed the other. 'I don't blame you. One is born with the divine afflatus, or one is not. That is all there is to it. It is no more your fault that you can't act than it is the fault of that sheik over there that he was not born a white man.'

'What a disillusionment that sheik was!' exclaimed Rhonda.

'How so?' asked Baine.

'When I was a little girl I saw Rudolph Valentino on the screen; and, ah, brothers, sheiks was sheiks in them days!'

'This bird sure doesn't look much like Valentino,' agreed Baine.

'Imagine being carried off into the desert by that bunch of whiskers and dirt! And here I've just been waiting all these years to be carried off.'

'I'll speak to Bill about it,' said Baine.

The girl sniffed. 'Bill West's a good cameraman, but he's no sheik. He's just about as romantic as his camera.'

'He's a swell guy,' insisted Baine.

'Of course he is; I'm crazy about him. He'd make a great brother.'

'How much longer we got to sit here?' demanded Naomi, peevishly.

'Until they get the generator truck and twenty-two other trucks through that mud hole.'

'I don't see why we can't go on. I don't see why we have to sit here and fight flies and bugs.'

'We might as well fight 'em here as somewhere else,' said Rhonda.

'Orman's afraid to separate the safari,' explained Baine. 'This is a bad piece of country. He was warned against bringing the company here. The natives never have been completely subdued, and they've been acting up lately.'

They were silent for a while, brushing away insects and watching the heavy truck being dragged slowly up the muddy bank. The ponies of the Arabs stood switching their tails and biting at the stinging pests that constantly annoyed them.

Sheykh Ab el-Ghrennem spoke to one at his side, a swarthy man with evil eyes. 'Which of the benat, Atewy, is she who holds the secret of the valley of diamonds?'

'Billah!' exclaimed Atewy, spitting. 'They are as alike as two pieces of jella. I cannot be sure which is which.'

'But one of them hath the paper? You are sure?'

'Yes. The old Nasrany, who is the father of one of them, had it; but she took it from him. The young man leaning against that invention of Sheytan, talking to them now, plotted to take the life of the old man that he might steal the paper; but the girl, his daughter, learned of the plot