EVEN APES FIGHT FOR IT
Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine – February 25, 1939
By Edgar Rice Burroughs

The sunlight, filtering through the trees, mottled the floor of the forest. Usha, the wind, whispering through the foliage of the patriarchs of the jungle, set them to gossiping – breathing softly the peace and the beauty of Nature primeval, undefiled by man, the Devil’s coup de maitre.

The tribe of Um-gah, the king ape, lazed in the soft warmth of the drowsy, equatorial afternoon. The little balus romped and played among the lower branches while their mothers searched for caterpillars among gorgeous orchid vines or dug grubs and other tidbits from rotting logs. 

All was peace. Neither Sheeta, the leopard, nor Numa, the lion, threatened the harmony of this idyllic scene. Only great Tantor, the elephant, shared with them the somnolent security of their ancestral home. Swaying his great body to and fro, flapping his huge ears, and switching his inadequate tail, he browsed upon the tender shoots of the succulent bamboo.

Then, of a sudden, all was changed. Um-gah, the king ape, went berserk. He beat his massive chest. He screamed. He roared. He bared his mighty fangs and growled. The shes and the bulls awoke from their lethargy. They were alert and fearful. The little balus scampered to their mothers’ sides. Tantor turned tail and fled.

Um-gah ran amuck. Roaring and frothing, he leaped upon Meemee and tore a great piece from her back. He sprang upon She-she, and rent her; then he seized a little balu and tore it limb from limb. The quiet and peace of the forest primeval was shattered by his hideous bellowing.

A bronzed giant, naked but for a G-string, lolled at ease upon a leafy branch. He had hunted and made his kill. He had fed – fed from the juicy rump of Wappi, the antelope. He wished only to lie and digest, but his peace was blasted by the screams of tortured shes and mangled balus.

The tribe, his tribe, was in danger! He leaped to his feet, swaying perilously upon the weaving branch; then, with the agility of Manu, the monkey, he swung through the middle terrace of the forest in the direction of the sounds that had aroused him.

Um-gah was rending another balu when the Lord of the Jungle dropped from an overhanging branch and faced him. The bronzed giant, naked but for a G-string, beat his breast and voiced the hideous challenge of the bull ape. 

Um-gah dropped the mangled corpse of the balu. “I kill!” he screamed. They circled. The bronze giant, naked but for a G-string, seized Um-gah and lifted him above his head; by one wrist he lifted him. He swung him in great circles, then hurled him to the ground and leaped upon him. “Kreeg-ah!” he shouted, which means “Surrender!” He placed a foot upon the body of his foe and raising his face to the heavens, voiced the victory cry of the bull ape.

“Kreeg-ah,” admitted Um-gah, which also means “I do surrender.”

“Ula bango gin mula mula?” demanded Tarzan, or “What the hell’s eating you, you big bum?”

“Can you blame me?” pleaded Um-gah. “Some so-and-so swiped my new issue of Rob Wagner’s Script.”