Edgar Rice Burroughs employed and exploited his famous Tarzan character for thirty years from 1911 to 1944 in 24 published novels -- he was still writing about him in 1946 and no doubt would have written many more Tarzan novels had he lived a longer life.
It is interesting to speculate on how the mythos of Tarzan developed over the years. His first two Tarzans, Apes and Return make a pair of sorts, some like to include Beasts in the grouping and think of the first three Tarzan novels as a trilogy to balance the great Barsoomian trilogy written in white-hot inspiration during this same period from 1911 through 1914.

Tarzan of the Apes was a deadly trickster who found imaginative ways to end the dastardly lives of his enemies. It is one of the reasons we love him so much. He was a master of clever, even nightmarish revenge who arranged the gruesome demise of evil men in ways we all secretly wish we might eliminate those who do us harm. And he did it with a smile.
Who can forget the trembling last hours of Major Schneider trapped up a tree by a man-eating lion in a narrow gorge? Tarzan set this little scene for us to enjoy in Tarzan the Untamed, placing the wicked Hun there to exact revenge for his "murder" of his beloved Jane. Never mind that he had the wrong Schneider. Never mind that Jane was alive. We can imagine with a Tarzanic, slight smile on our lips the final mad scramble for the cliff, the terrified screams under the rending claws. Ah, sweet revenge!

Tarzan was a man with a grim sense of humor. No sadist, he did not hang around to witness the delicious dance of death he had set up. The stunt was similar to the one prepared for the witch-doctor, Bukawai, whom he left bound to a tree in a cave for the hyenas to return in Jungle Tales. He did not stay for the curtain fall that time either, but Burroughs assures us that the hyenas returned.