For a long time Tarzan could not tell whether the beast was following out of friendly feelings or merely stalking him against the time he should be hungry; but finally he was forced to believe that the former incentive it was that prompted the animal’s action.
Later in the day the scent of a deer sent Tarzan into the trees, and when he had dropped his noose about the animal’s neck he called to Sheeta, using a purr similar to that which he had utilized to pacify the brute’s suspicions earlier in the day, but a trifle louder and more shrill.
It was similar to that which he had heard panthers use after a kill when they had been hunting in pairs.
Almost immediately there was a crashing of the underbrush close at hand, and the long, lithe body of his strange companion broke into view.
At sight of the body of Bara and the smell of blood the panther gave forth a shrill scream, and a moment later two beasts were feeding side by side upon the tender meat of the deer.
For several days this strangely assorted pair roamed the jungle together.
When one made a kill he called the other, and thus they fed well and often.
On one occasion as they were dining upon the carcass of a boar that Sheeta had dispatched, Numa, the lion, grim and terrible, broke through the tangled grasses close beside them.
With an angry, warning roar he sprang forward to chase them from their kill. Sheeta bounded into a near-by thicket, while Tarzan took to the low branches of an overhanging tree.
Here the ape-man unloosed his grass rope from about his neck, and as Numa stood above the body of the boar, challenging head erect, he dropped the sinuous noose about the maned neck, drawing the stout strands taut with a sudden jerk. At the same time he called shrilly to Sheeta, as he drew the struggling lion upward until only his hind feet touched the ground.