Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 3 (1925-03).djvu/15

14 pleted the task of securing the upper end of the ladder.

The poles for the base of the platform were drawn upward into the tree and placed across two limbs that extended horizontally from the trunk. Upon the base thus fashioned, the other poles were placed and secured in position.

When the platform had been completed, a fire was built at the base of the tree, of dry wood obtained from the surrounding thickets, and the evening repast was prepared. Following a long chat regarding the mysterious disappearance of the people of the city of Teeheemen, the four men and the three guides climbed into the quarters prepared in the great tree.

moon was at its full and rose above the jungle fastnesses shortly after the members of the party had retired to the platform. Holton was just dozing off when an unearthly bellow reverberated through the jungle, awakening echoes from the far-away hills of the plain. Holton rose from his reclining position, and the other members also sat up. Again the great beast of the jungle called.

"Teeheemen," said Holton. "The god of old Walum and Urlus has survived his worshipers. The beast still lives, and I may get the chance to take his carcass to the United States."

"And he hasn't lost any of his singing ability," Otter added.

A silence ensued for a space of five minutes. There was a heavy movement in the jungle thickets below as a great beast crashed through. The men on the platform in the tree peered downward into the recesses of the jungle below, dimly lighted by the moon. A tremendous bellow again sounded, its notes sending the blood of the members of the expedition coursing excitedly through their veins.

"He is calling for his mate, who is no more," Benton suggested.

"I am going to risk a shot at the creature," Holton remarked, pointing his rifle toward the monster dimly outlined in one of the open spaces in the jungle growth below. "I may never get another. A chance hit may bring him down."

The report of Holton's rifle broke the stillness that had ensued following the last call of the jungle beast.

As the crack of the rifle sounded, the creature standing in the dimly lighted thicket below gave a tremendous bellow of anger. It rushed backward and forward in the undergrowth, seeking the enemy that had so suddenly attacked it. Holton fired again and the bullet struck its mark, for the great beast increased its exhibition of anger. It finally decided, in its instinctive mentality, the source from which the attack had come. It rushed with the velocity of a locomotive toward the trunk of the tree in which the platform had been constructed. The impact was terrific, and the great tree was shaken to its topmost branches. Again and again the monster charged the tree, its attacks threatening to dislodge the men on the platform. They were obliged to cling to overhanging branches to maintain their positions in safety.

Finding its attack futile, the monster finally desisted, and roaring tremendously it raced through the thickets and disappeared into the jungle fastnesses.

"That may be my last chance to kill the creature," Holton lamented.

"I'm not sorry if it is," Otter remarked, taking a survey of the condition of the platform. "That devil nearly dislodged all of the poles in this roost, and us with them."

"Your first shot apparently stung him," said Benton. "Your second only added to his rage."