READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
night. In his bloodied hand was the hunting knife of his father.
And soon, the scent assailed him for which he searched.
He paused, motionless, listening. The wind gave him his
direction, and soon he perceived something moving in the
shadows of a group of boulders, some two hundred feet away.
As the thing moved out of sight behind one of the stone
outcroppings, he shot forward in great, silent leaps and
bounds, arriving at a point of vantage near his quarry within
a few swift moments.
There he waited, crouched, watching. Soon the young
wild thoat appeared from behind the boulder, quietly cropping
a patch of scarlet sward that grew here in the tiny valley
between the hills.
Tarzan's hunger was subordinated momentarily to his
curiosity, for he saw before him another animal which was
totally new to him. The creature walked on eight, graceful
legs which appeared to be constructed for racing. Its broad,
flat tail was broader at the tip than at the root. Its mouth was
enormous, splitting its head from its snout to its long,
massive neck. Like the white apes, it was devoid of hair, its
skin being of a dark slate color and exceedingly smooth and
glossy, with the exception of the belly, which was white, and
the legs, which shaded from slate at the shoulders and hips to
a vivid yellow at its feet. The feet were heavily padded and
were neither hoofed nor taloned.
Exactly what nature of animal it might be, the apeman
did not know, but that it was evidently the natural prey of the
carnivore and that it fed on herbs and grasses as did his own
Bara, the deer, indicated to his reason, his olfactory senses,
and his empty stomach that this was what he sought.
As the creature moved to within thirty feet of him, he
crouched lower, taking a firmer grip on his knife. He realized
he must not again underestimate the capacity of his earthly
muscles or he would undoubtedly go hungry. Therefore, he
decided to throw himself forward at such a low angle that the
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