Taug, always cautious himself, as it behooves one to bewho fares up and down the jungle and desires to survive,swung noiselessly into a tree, where he could havea much better view of the clearing. He did not fear Dango;but he wanted to look at what it was that Dango stalked. In a way, possibly, he was actuated as much by curiosityas by caution.

And when Taug reached a place in the branches fromwhich he could have an unobstructed view of the clearinghe saw Dango already sniffing at something directlybeneath him-- something which Taug instantly recognizedas the lifeless form of his little Gazan.

With a cry so frightful, so bestial, that it momentarilyparalyzed the startled Dango, the great ape launched hismighty bulk upon the surprised hyena. With a cry and a snarl,Dango, crushed to earth, turned to tear at his assailant;but as effectively might a sparrow turn upon a hawk. Taug's great, gnarled fingers closed upon the hyena'sthroat and back, his jaws snapped once on the mangy neck,crushing the vertebrae, and then he hurled the dead bodycontemptuously aside.

Again he raised his voice in the call of the bull apeto its mate, but there was no reply; then he leaned down tosniff at the body of Gazan. In the breast of this savage,hideous beast there beat a heart which was moved,however slightly, by the same emotions of paternal lovewhich affect us. Even had we no actual evidence of this,we must know it still, since only thus might be explainedthe survival of the human race in which the jealousyand selfishness of the bulls would, in the earlieststages of the race, have wiped out the young as rapidlyas they were brought into the world had not God implantedin the savage bosom that paternal love which evidencesitself most strongly in the protective instinct of the male.

In Taug the protective instinct was not alone highly developed;but affection for his offspring as well, for Taug was anunusually intelligent specimen of these great, manlike apeswhich the natives of the Gobi speak of in whispers;but which no black man ever had seen, or, if seeing,lived to tell of until Tarzan of the Apes came among them.