Tarzan of the Apes turned abruptly to the right then and ran along a narrow ascending ledge with the intention of gaining the ledge upon which the other stood without having to ascend directly into the face of his antagonist. The man guessed his purpose and started along his own ledge to circumvent him. Below them the girl was clambering upward.
"Go back!" shouted the man in the language of the great apes. "Go back! I kill!"
"Rhonda!" called the ape-man.
The girl crawled from the cave out onto the ledge. "Stanley!" she cried in astonishment.
"Climb up the cliff," Tarzan directed. "You can follow the ledges up. I can keep him occupied until you get to the top. Then go south toward the lower end of the valley."
"I'll try," she replied and started to climb from ledge to ledge.
The girl ascending from below saw her and shouted to the man. "Kreeg-ah!" she screamed. "The she is escaping!"
Now the man turned away from Tarzan and started in pursuit of Rhonda; and the ape-man, instead of following directly after him, clambered to a higher ledge, moving diagonally in the direction of the American girl.
Rhonda, spurred on by terror, was climbing much more rapidly than she herself could have conceived possible. The narrow ledges, the precarious footing would have appalled her at any other time; but now she ignored all danger and thought only of reaching the summit of the cliff before the strange white man overtook her.
And so it was that by a combination of her speed and Tarzan's strategy the ape-man was able to head off her pursuer before he overtook her.