Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
The cutting of the long poles for her home occupied all of the daylight
hours that were not engaged in the search for food. These poles she
carried high into her tree and with them constructed a flooring across
two stout branches binding the poles together and also to the branches
with fibers from the tough arboraceous grasses that grew in profusion
near the stream. Similarly she built walls and a roof, the latter
thatched with many layers of great leaves. The fashioning of the barred
windows and the door were matters of great importance and consuming
interest. The windows, there were two of them, were large and the bars
permanently fixed; but the door was small, the opening just large
enough to permit her to pass through easily on hands and knees, which
made it easier to barricade. She lost count of the days that the house
cost her; but time was a cheap commodity--she had more of it than of
anything else. It meant so little to her that she had not even any
desire to keep account of it. How long since she and Obergatz had fled
from the wrath of the Negro villagers she did not know and she could
only roughly guess at the seasons. She worked hard for two reasons; one
was to hasten the completion of her little place of refuge, and the
other a desire for such physical exhaustion at night that she would
sleep through those dreaded hours to a new day. As a matter of fact the
house was finished in less than a week--that is, it was made as safe as
it ever would be, though regardless of how long she might occupy it she
would keep on adding touches and refinements here and there.
Her daily life was filled with her house building and her hunting, to
which was added an occasional spice of excitement contributed by roving
lions. To the woodcraft that she had learned from Tarzan, that master
of the art, was added a considerable store of practical experience
derived from her own past adventures in the jungle and the long months
with Obergatz, nor was any day now lacking in some added store of
useful knowledge. To these facts was attributable her apparent immunity
from harm, since they told her when JA was approaching before he crept
close enough for a successful charge and, too, they kept her close to
those never-failing havens of retreat--the trees.
The nights, filled with their weird noises, were lonely and depressing.
Only her ability to sleep quickly and soundly made them endurable. The
first night that she spent in her completed house behind barred windows
and barricaded door was one of almost undiluted peace and happiness.
The night noises seemed far removed and impersonal and the soughing of
the wind in the trees was gently soothing. Before, it had carried a
mournful note and was sinister in that it might hide the approach of
some real danger. That night she slept indeed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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