"Brown says this looks like the kill of a man," said Barney; "but none of us heard any shot."
Tarzan grasped the zebra by a front and hind pastern and rolled him over upon his other side.
"It went way through, whatever it was," said Butzow, as the hole behind this shoulder was exposed to view. "Must have been a bullet even if we didn't hear the report of the gun."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Tarzan, and then he glanced casually at the ground about the carcass, and bending lower brought his sensitive nostrils close to the mutilated haunch and then to the tramped grasses at the zebra's side. When he straightened up the others looked at him questioningly.
"A man," he said—"a white man, has been here since the zebra died. He cut these steaks from the haunches. There is not the slightest odor of gun powder about the wound—it was not made by a powder-sped projectile. It is too large and too deep for an arrow wound. The only other weapon that could have inflicted it is a spear; but to cast a spear entirely through the carcass of a zebra at the distance to which a man could approach one in the open presupposes a mightiness of muscle and an accuracy of aim little short of super-human."
"And you think—?" commenced Brown.
"I think nothing," interrupted Tarzan, "except that my judgment tells me that my senses are in error—there is no naked, white giant hunting through the country of the Waziri. Come, let's ride on to the hills and see if we can't locate the old villain who has been stealing my sheep. From his spoor I'll venture to say that when we bring him down we shall see the largest lion that any of us has ever seen."
V
THE WATCHER
As the party remounted and rode away toward the foothills two wondering black eyes watched them from the safety of the jungle. Nu was utterly non-plussed. What sort of men were these who rode upon beasts the like of which Nu had never dreamed? At first he thought their pith helmets and khaki clothing a part of them; but when one of them removed his helmet and another unbuttoned his jacket Nu saw that they were merely coverings for the head and body, though why men should wish to hamper themselves with such foolish and cumbersome contraptions the troglodyte could not imagine.