Let us go back a few months to the little, windswept platform of a
railway station in northern Wisconsin. The smoke of forest fires
hangs low over the surrounding landscape, its acrid fumes smarting
the eyes of a little party of six who stand waiting the coming of
the train that is to bear them away toward the south.

Professor Archimedes Q. Porter, his hands clasped beneath the tails
of his long coat, paces back and forth under the ever-watchful eye
of his faithful secretary, Mr. Samuel T. Philander. Twice within
the past few minutes he has started absent-mindedly across the
tracks in the direction of a near-by swamp, only to be rescued and
dragged back by the tireless Mr. Philander.

Jane Porter, the professor's daughter, is in strained and lifeless
conversation with William Cecil Clayton and Tarzan of the Apes.
Within the little waiting room, but a bare moment before, a confession
of love and a renunciation had taken place that had blighted the
lives and happiness of two of the party, but William Cecil Clayton,
Lord Greystoke, was not one of them.

Behind Miss Porter hovered the motherly Esmeralda. She, too, was
happy, for was she not returning to her beloved Maryland? Already
she could see dimly through the fog of smoke the murky headlight of
the oncoming engine. The men began to gather up the hand baggage.
Suddenly Clayton exclaimed.

"By Jove! I've left my ulster in the waiting-room," and hastened