creature it was that alighted heavily upon his back, for at the
instant of impact the sinewy fingers of the ape-man circled the
hairy throat of the Boche. There was a moment of futile struggling
followed by the sudden realization of dissolution--the sniper was
dead.

Lying behind the rampart of rocks and boughs, Tarzan looked down
upon the scene below. Near at hand were the trenches of the Germans.
He could see officers and men moving about in them and almost in
front of him a well-hidden machine gun was traversing No Man's Land
in an oblique direction, striking the British at such an angle as
to make it difficult for them to locate it.

Tarzan watched, toying idly with the rifle of the dead German.
Presently he fell to examining the mechanism of the piece. He
glanced again toward the German trenches and changed the adjustment
of the sights, then he placed the rifle to his shoulder and took
aim. Tarzan was an excellent shot. With his civilized friends he
had hunted big game with the weapons of civilization and though he
never had killed except for food or in self-defense he had amused
himself firing at inanimate targets thrown into the air and had
perfected himself in the use of firearms without realizing that
he had done so. Now indeed would he hunt big game. A slow smile
touched his lips as his finger closed gradually upon the trigger.
The rifle spoke and a German machine gunner collapsed behind his
weapon. In three minutes Tarzan picked off the crew of that gun.
Then he spotted a German officer emerging from a dugout and the
three men in the bay with him. Tarzan was careful to leave no one
in the immediate vicinity to question how Germans could be shot in
German trenches when they were entirely concealed from enemy view.