How to stop the creature he did not know, as up to this time his
sole desire had been to urge it forward. By experimenting with
his staff, however, he found that he could bring it to a halt by
reaching forward and striking the thing upon its beaklike snout.
Close by grew a number of leafy trees, in any one of which the
ape-man could have found sanctuary, but it had occurred to him
that should he immediately take to the trees it might suggest to
the mind of the gryf that the creature that had been commanding him
all day feared him, with the result that Tarzan would once again
be held a prisoner by the triceratops.
And so, when the gryf halted, Tarzan slid to the ground, struck the
creature a careless blow across the flank as though in dismissal
and walked indifferently away. From the throat of the beast came
a low rumbling sound and without even a glance at Tarzan it turned
and entered the river where it stood drinking for a long time.
Convinced that the gryf no longer constituted a menace to him the
ape-man, spurred on himself by the gnawing of hunger, unslung his
bow and selecting a handful of arrows set forth cautiously in search
of food, evidence of the near presence of which was being borne up
to him by a breeze from down river.
Ten minutes later he had made his kill, again one of the Pal-ul-don
specimens of antelope, all species of which Tarzan had known since
childhood as Bara, the deer, since in the little primer that had
been the basis of his education the picture of a deer had been the
nearest approach to the likeness of the antelope, from the giant
eland to the smaller bushbuck of the hunting grounds of his youth.
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