Illus
View larger image
Illus
He jumped through a hoop covered with paper
Frontispiece. See page 92
View larger image
Kneetime Animal Stories
NERO
THE CIRCUS LION
HIS MANY ADVENTURES
BY
RICHARD BARNUM
Author of "Squinty, the Comical Pig," "Mappo, the
Merry Monkey," "Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant,"
"Chunky, the Happy Hippo," "Sharp Eyes,
the Silver Fox," etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
WALTER S. ROGERS
NEW YORK
BARSE & HOPKINS
PUBLISHERS
KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES
By Richard Barnum
Large 12mo. Illustrated.
- Squinty, The Comical Pig.
- Slicko, The Jumping Squirrel.
- Mappo, The Merry Monkey.
- Tum Tum, The Jolly Elephant.
- Don, A Runaway Dog.
- Dido, The Dancing Bear.
- Blackie, A Lost Cat.
- Flop Ear, The Funny Rabbit.
- Tinkle, The Trick Pony.
- Lightfoot, The Leaping Goat.
- Chunky, The Happy Hippo.
- Sharp Eyes, The Silver Fox.
- Nero, The Circus Lion.
- Tamba, The Tame Tiger.
BARSE & HOPKINS
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1919,
by
Barse & Hopkins
Nero, The Circus Lion
VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
Binghamton and New York
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
Contents
NERO,
THE CIRCUS LION
CHAPTER I
NERO HAS SOME FUN
Far off in the jungle of Africa lived a family of lions.
Africa, you know, is a very hot country, and what we, in this land, would call a forest, or woods, is called a "jungle" there. In the jungle grew many trees, and the ground was covered with low vines and bushes so that animals, creeping along, could scarcely be seen. That was why the animals liked the jungle so much; they could roam about in it, play and get their meals, and the black hunters and the white huntsmen who sometimes came to the jungle, could not easily see to shoot the lions, elephants and other beasts.
There were five lions in this jungle family, and I am going to tell you the story of one of them, named Nero. Nero was a little boy lion, about two years old, but please don't think he was a baby because he was only two years old. Lions grow much faster than boys and girls, and a lion of two years is quite large and strong, with sharp claws and sharper teeth.
Nero lived with his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Lion, and his brother Chet and his sister Boo, in a cave in the African jungle. The cave was among the rocks, and not far from a spring of water where the lions went to drink each night. They drank only at night because that was the safest time; the hunters could not so easily see the shaggy lions with their big heads, and manes larger than those of a horse.
Nero was the largest of the three lion children, and he was called Nero because that always seems to be the right name for some one large and strong. Chet, who was Nero's brother, got his name because, when he was a little baby lion cub, he used to make that sound when he cried for his dinner.
As for Boo—well, I must tell you in what a funny way she got her name, and then I'll go on with the story of Nero. When Boo, who was Nero's sister, was a little baby lion, she was sitting in the front of the jungle cave one day, waiting for her mother to come back. Mrs. Lion had gone out a little way into the jungle to get something to eat.
All of a sudden Boo, who up to then had no name, heard some one coming along the jungle path, stepping on twigs and tree branches and making them crack. By this sound the little girl lion cub knew some one was coming.
"That must be my mother," thought Boo. "I'll just hide behind this piece of rock, and then I'll jump out and make believe to scare her. It will be lots of fun."
So Boo hid behind the rock near the front door of the cave-house, and, when the noise came nearer, the little girl lion jumped out and cried: "Boo!" or something that sounded very much like it.
But the little girl lion had made a mistake. Instead of her mother who was coming along the jungle path, it was a big prickly hedgehog with sharp quills all over his back, and when Boo put out her paw she was stuck full of stickery quills. The quills in a hedgehog's back are loose, and come out easily.
"Boo! Boo!" roared the little lion cub girl, but this time she was crying instead of trying to make believe scare some one. The hedgehog, however, was very much frightened—almost all the jungle animals were afraid of the lions—and this hedgehog ran away.
But the little girl lion's paw hurt her very much, and when a little later, Mrs. Lion came back, with something to eat, and found out what had happened, she said Boo had been very foolish.
And when Mr. Lion heard the story, and Nero and Chet had been told about it, they all said that "Boo" would be a very good name for the little sister lion.
"I don't care what you call me," said Boo, speaking in lion talk of course. "I don't care what my name is, if you'll only get these hedgehog stickers out of my paw."
Then they pulled the hedgehog spines out of the little girl lion's paw, and she washed it in cool water at the spring, which made her foot feel better.
For two years the lion cubs, Nero, Chet and Boo, had lived with their father and mother in the jungle cave. They learned how to tread softly on the leaves and twigs of the jungle path, so as to make no noise. They learned how to creep quietly down to the spring at night to get a drink, so that the hunters would not hear them.
All about them, in the jungle, lived other wild animals. There were several families of lions in that same part of the forest, and very often a herd of elephants would pass by, tramping and crashing their way through the jungle. The lions never bothered the elephants.
"Where are you going, Nero?" asked his mother of the lion boy cub one day, as she saw him starting out from the jungle cave. "Where are you going?"
"Oh, just out to have some fun," he answered. "I'm going to play with Switchie."
"Switchie," was the name of another lion boy cub, who lived in the cave next to Nero's. He was about a year older than the lion chap about whom I am going to tell you in this story. Switchie was called that because he switched his tail about in such a funny way.
"So you are going to play with Switchie, are you?" asked Mrs. Lion, as she looked at a place where a sharp stone had cut her foot, though the sore was now getting better. "Well, if you go to play with that lion boy don't get into mischief."
"What's mischief, Ma?" asked Nero.
"Mischief is trouble," his mother answered, speaking in lion talk, just as your dog or your cat speaks its own kind of language. "So don't get into trouble. Don't go to the spring now to get a drink, for the hunters may be watching, and may shoot you with an arrow, or with a queer lead stone, from a thing called a gun, which is worse. So don't get into mischief."
"I won't," promised Nero, and he meant to keep his word, but then he didn't count on Switchie. That chap was a bold little lion cub, larger than Nero, and always up to some trick.
"Hello, Nero!" growled Switchie, when he saw his friend coming along the jungle path.
"Hello!"
Now please don't imagine, just because these lions growled, that they were cross. They weren't anything of the sort. That was just their way of talking. Your dog barks and growls, and that is his way of speaking. Your cat mews and sometimes growls or "spits," and often purrs, especially when you tickle her ears. And a lion always growls when he talks. When he is angry he roars—that's the difference. And, I almost forgot, lions can purr, too, only it sounds like a buzz saw instead of the way your cat purrs. But then a lion's throat is very big, and so his purr has to be big also.
"Want to have some fun?" asked Switchie, as Nero lay down in the jungle shade.
"That's what I came over for," Nero answered. "Only my mother said I wasn't to get into any mischief."
"Oh, no, we won't do anything like that!" replied Switchie. "We'll just go along in the jungle and have some fun. I know where there is some soft grass, and we can roll over and over in that and scratch our backs."
"Fine!" said Nero. "We'll go there."
So Switchie led the way along another jungle path to a place where very few trees grew. In the midst of these few trees was a grassy place. That is, it had been green and grassy once when it was raining, which it does for several months at a time in the jungle. But the rains had stopped, the hot sun had come out from behind the clouds and dried the grass up, so that it was now like hay.
"And it's just fine to roll in. It scratches your back just hard enough," said Switchie, making his tail, with the tuft of hair on the end, swing about in a funny way.
"I like to have my back scratched," said Nero.
So the two boy lions went to have some fun and roll in the dried grass. It was just as if you had gone to roll and tumble on the hay in Grandpa's barn. The lion boys leaped about, jumped over one another, made believe bite one another and played tag with their paws.
As Switchie had said, the dried, curled grass tickled their backs just enough when they rolled over and over in it. But at last Switchie said:
"Say, aren't you thirsty?"
"Yes," answered Nero, "I am."
"Then let's go to the spring and get a drink," went on Switchie.
"Oh no! My mother said I wasn't to go to the spring in the daytime!" exclaimed Nero. "There may be hunters there, waiting to shoot us."
"Oh, I don't believe there are," said Switchie. "I'll tell you what we can do. My mother didn't tell me not to go to the spring, so I'll walk on ahead until we come to it. Then I can look and see if there are any hunters. If there aren't you can come out of the jungle and get a drink. Won't that be all right?"
"Yes, I guess it will," said Nero. "Mother wouldn't want me not to have a drink. All she's afraid of are the hunters."
"Then come on!" growled Switchie. "We'll go to the spring, and we'll have some fun on the way."
So the two boy lions walked along the jungle path to the spring where all the animals drank. On the way they fell down and rolled over and cuffed one another with their paws—the way all lions do to have fun. Nero was having a very good time, and he never gave a thought about not minding his mother.
At last Switchie and Nero came close to the spring.
"Now you stay behind this bush until I look out and see if there are any hunters," said Switchie.
"All right," answered Nero.
Carefully the older lion boy peeped through the bushes. There was no one at the spring except some little monkeys, getting a drink, and as soon as they saw the lion boy away they scampered, chattering, for the monkeys were afraid of the lions.
"Everything is all right!" called Switchie to the hiding Nero. "There are no hunters! Come on and get a drink."
Nero was very thirsty, after having played and had fun in the hot jungle sun, and he very much wanted a drink. So he rushed down to the spring, which was quite a large one, and began to lap up the water, just as your dog or cat drinks milk from a dish.
"Isn't this fun?" growled Switchie, as he stopped drinking for a moment. "Aren't we having fun, Nero?"
"Lots of fun!" answered the other lion cub.
And just then something happened. There was a rattle of the dried leaves in the jungle back of the spring. Something very hard hit Nero in the side, and a voice cried:
"There! I'll teach you to drink from my edge of the spring! Take that!"
And the next moment Nero felt himself sliding down the slippery bank of the spring, and into the water he went with a big splash!
Contents
CHAPTER II
NERO GOES HUNTING
The first thought of Nero, the little lion cub boy, as he felt himself falling into the spring of water, was that Switchie had played a joke and pushed him in.
"And when I get out I'll push him in," thought Nero. But that was all he had time to think, just then, for his head went away under the water—as the spring was deep—and Nero had to think of getting out. So he splashed and scrambled his way to shore, clawing and spluttering and half choking, for lions are not good swimmers. Indeed few animals of the cat family are, and lions belong to the cat family, you know, as do tigers and jaguars.
So, with his eyes and nose and mouth full of water, Nero scrambled to shore, a very wet and bedraggled lion boy indeed. On the shore he saw Switchie standing looking at him. Switchie was nice and dry.
"What did you do that for?" growled Nero to Switchie, as soon as our friend had shaken some of the water off his shaggy, tawny-yellow coat. "I'll fix you for that! Fun is all right, but you know I don't like jumping into the water, however much I like a drink from the spring. Now I'm going to push you in!" and Nero started to run toward Switchie.
"Hey! Wait a minute!" cried Switchie, raising his paw to push Nero away if the younger lion cub should come too near. "I didn't do anything to you."
"Yes, you did!" growled Nero. "You pushed me into the water!"
"No, I didn't!" answered Switchie. "I was taking my second drink, when I heard a noise, and I looked up and saw you sliding down into the water. But I didn't push you in."
"Who did, then?" asked Nero, looking around, quite fiercely for a little lion boy. "Who did? If I find out, I'll push him in! If it was one of the monkeys—"
"Oh, it wasn't any of them," said Switchie quickly. "They won't come near the spring when we lions are drinking."
"But it was some one!" said Nero. "I heard some one say I couldn't drink on his edge of the spring, and then I was pushed in. Who did it? I want to know that!"
"I did it!" said a grumbling sort of voice, and up out of the spring came something which, at first, looked like a log of wood. It was dark, and had knobs, or warts, on it, as has the trunk of a tree.
"Who—who are you?" asked Nero, in surprise. "Are you a log of wood that can speak?"
"Look out! Gracious no! That's a crocodile!" cried Switchie. "I forgot about their being here. Come on! Run!"
And as Nero saw what he had thought was a log of wood open a big mouth with many sharp teeth in it, the little lion boy ran after Switchie, who scampered off along the jungle path as fast as he could go.
"What's the matter? What was that thing which looked like a log floating in the water?" asked Nero, when he and Switchie stopped to rest in the shadow of a big
"That's a crocodile, I told you!" said Switchie. "They are very big and strong, and if they get hold of your soft and tender nose, when you are drinking at the pool, they can pull you under water and drown you. You want to be careful about crocodiles."
"Well, I will," said Nero. "Only I didn't know about them before. Was it the crocodile who knocked me into the water?"
"Yes," answered Switchie, "it was. A crocodile has a long and very strong tail, with knobs and sharp ridges on it. They can knock you into the water with their tail, and then they bite you. I didn't know there were crocodiles at our spring, or I wouldn't have gone there in the daytime for a drink. At night it's all right, for then they can't see you so plainly."
Illus
Nero saw what he had thought was a
log of wood open a big mouth
Page 18
View larger image
"Well, this one saw me all right," said Nero. "My side is sore where he knocked me into the spring."
"It's lucky your nose isn't sore where he might have bitten you," growled Switchie. "That was a mean crocodile! We had just as good right to drink on that side of the spring-pool as he had!"
"Well, maybe we had," said Nero. "But he was stronger than I, and so he knocked me in. Now I'm all wet!"
And so Nero learned one of the first lessons of the jungle, that it is the strongest and fiercest animals that have the best of it.
The elephants of the jungle, which are the largest animals, crash their way through, afraid of nothing except the men hunters. And the lions, when the elephants are not near, are the real kings of the jungle. Few animals stay to drink at the spring when the lion roars, to say he is coming.
But this was in daylight and Switchie and Nero were only lion cubs, so, I suppose, the crocodile was not afraid of them. And, being big and strong, he just knocked Nero into the water, and claimed that as his side of the pool, though he had no right to.
"Come on," said Switchie to Nero, after they had gone a little way further through the jungle and back from the spring. "Come on; I know how we can have some more fun."
"No, I've had enough for to-day," said Nero. "I'm going home and lie down in the cave. My side hurts where the crocodile struck me with his tail."
"Oh, come on! Play tag!" begged Switchie.
"No," said Nero. "I'm going home."
And home he went. As soon as his mother saw him, wet and muddy as he still was, Mrs. Lion said:
"Well, Nero, what happened to you? Did you get into mischief?"
"I don't know, Ma," answered Nero. "But I got in the spring!"
"There! I told you to keep away from the water hole in the daytime!" said Mrs. Lion. "I knew something would happen if you played with that Switchie. That lion cub will get into trouble some day. He is too bold!"
"A crocodile knocked me into the water," explained Nero. "It wasn't Switchie's fault."
"It was the fault of both you lion boys for going where you ought not to," said Nero's mother. "Now you see what happened. But I'm sorry your side is hurt. Go into the cave and lie down. I'll bring you a nice piece of goat meat to eat, and get some soft grass to make you a bed. You'll be all right in a few days, but after this—mind me!"
"I will," promised Nero.
The soft grass, which his mother pawed into a bed for him with her sharp claws, felt very comfortable to his sore side. And the goat's meat, which lions eat when they can get it, tasted very good. Nero soon became dry and then he went to sleep.
When he awakened his brother Chet and his sister Boo were in the cave looking at him.
"Mother says you got into mischief!" exclaimed Boo. "Tell us all about it, Nero."
So Nero did, and when his story was ended Chet said enviously:
"I wish I had been there. If I had, I'd have scratched that crocodile with my claws!"
"You couldn't have hurt him that way," said Mr. Lion, who came into the cave just then. "Crocodiles have a very hard, thick skin on their backs and tails, much harder and thicker than our skin, and even that of an elephant. You can't hurt a crocodile by scratching his back. The only way to hurt them is to turn them over, and while you are trying to do that they'll knock you about with the big tail. So keep away from the crocodiles, children."
"I will," said Nero, and Boo and Chet said the same thing.
"Now hurry and get well," said Nero's father to him, as the lion boy lay in the cave. "You are growing large and strong, and soon you will have to learn to go hunting."
"What's hunting?" asked Nero.
"It is learning how to get your own things to eat," said his father. "When you were little, your mother and I hunted the goats and other animals that we have to eat. But now you are getting big enough to go hunting for yourself. Only I must give you a few lessons."
"Can't I learn to hunt, too?" asked Chet.
"And I?" Boo wanted to know.
"Yes," said their father. "After I teach Nero I'll teach you. One at a time. The jungle is full of danger, and I can teach only one of you at a time how to be careful. So get good and well and strong, Nero, and soon I'll take you on a hunt."
Nero thought he would like this, so he stayed quietly in the cave for a day or two, until his side, where the crocodile had struck him with the sharp-ridged tail, felt much better.
One day, about a week after Nero had been tossed into the spring, he noticed his father sharpening his claws on the bark of a tree.
"What's he doing that for?" Nero asked his mother.
"To get ready for the jungle hunt to-night," answered Mrs. Lion. "I heard him say something about taking you, so perhaps you had better sharpen your claws, also."
"I will," answered Nero, and he did, making the bits of bark fly as he pulled it from a tree in the jungle, not far from the cave where he lived.
When it began to get dark, which it does very early in the big African forest, as the thick trees shut out the light of the sun, Nero said to his mother:
"Aren't we going to have any supper?"
"Not to-night—that is, not right away," said Mr. Lion. "You are going to hunt for your supper, Nero."
"But I am very hungry," returned the little lion boy, who was growing bigger and stronger every day.
"Then you will hunt all the better," growled his father. "There is nothing like being hungry to make a good hunter-lion. Come, now is the time I have long waited for—to teach you to hunt in the jungle. Your mother and Chet and Boo are going to have supper with Switchie and his folks. You and I are going to hunt for ourselves. Come, we will go into a part of the jungle where you have never yet been."
And Nero felt very much excited when he heard
Suddenly, through the jungle, which was now quite dark, there came a distant sound as if of thunder. There was a rumble and a roar, and the very ground seemed to shake.
"What's that?" asked Nero, looking at his father.
Contents
CHAPTER III
NERO IS SHOT
Once again, as Nero stood with Mr. Lion at the front door of the jungle cave, the roaring sound echoed among the trees.
"What is that?" asked the boy lion once more.
"That is the roaring of other lions, who are also going out to hunt to-night," said Nero's father. "There will be many of us lions in the jungle; perhaps others, like you, who are going out for the first time. You must be brave and strong. Remember the lessons your mother and I have taught you. Crouch down and jump hard. Strike hard with your paws and dig deep with your sharp claws. That is what they are for—to help you hunt so that you may get things to eat. Now we will start."
By this time the jungle around the cave where Nero lived seemed filled with the roarings of other lions. The very ground seemed to tremble. Nero was excited, but he was sure he could hunt well. He was a brave lion, and he knew he was strong and nearly full grown now, and he knew his teeth were sharp, as were his claws, and his paws were strong, both for striking and leaping, for that is how a lion hunts.
"Boom! Boom!" rolled out the lions' roars in the jungle.
"Ah, we shall have a grand hunt to-night!" said Nero's father. "I hope you are still hungry."
"Yes I am, very," answered the boy lion.
"That is good," returned the father. "Now we will start. At first stay close to me, but when you see a goat or a sheep or some other animal you think you would like to eat, spring on it and strike it with your claws."
Of course this sounds cruel, but lions must get their food this way; there is no other.
Suddenly Nero opened his mouth and gave a great roar, the loudest he had ever uttered. It shook the ground on which he stood. The trembling of the earth seemed to tickle the pads of skin and flesh of his paws, pads which were the same to him as your shoes are to you.
"Ha, that was a fine roar, Nero!" said his father. "Roar again!"
And Nero did, louder than at first.
"That's the way!" cried Mr. Lion. "That will tell the other jungle folk to keep out of our way when we are having a night-hunt."
And that, I suppose, is why lions roar. They do it to frighten away the other animals who might spoil their hunt in the jungle.
For the lion's voice, when he roars, is frightfully loud. There is no other animal who can make so much noise—not even the elephant, which is larger than ten lions. If you have ever heard a lion roar, even in his circus cage, or in a city park, you will never forget it.
And so Nero roared, and his father roared, and the other lions, all about them in the jungle, roared until there was a regular lion chorus, and the other beasts, hearing it, slunk back to their dens or caves, or crouched under fallen trees, and one after another said to himself:
"The lions are out hunting to-night. It is best for us to stay in until they have finished. Then it will be our turn."
And so you see how it is that the strength of a lion makes the other animals afraid when the big animals hunt. Elephants do not need to fear lions, for the big animals, with trunks and tusks, do not eat the same kind of food lions eat. Elephants live on grass, hay, palm-nuts and things that grow. But the lion eats only meat, and he would eat an elephant if he could get one, though it might take him a long while.
"Now for the hunt!" said Mr. Lion, as he led Nero into the jungle. "Tread softly. Sniff with your nose until you smell something worth hunting, and then spring on it."
Though lions, like cats, can see pretty well in the dark, they have to depend a great deal in their hunting on what they can smell with their nose, just as your dog can smell a bone, and tell, in that way, where he has buried it in the garden.
So Nero and his father joined the other lions on their march through the jungle in search of something to eat. And Nero kept getting hungrier and hungrier, so that he looked eagerly around every side of him in the darkness, and sniffed so that he might know when he came near anything he could kill and eat.
The other lions were doing the same thing. They did not roar now, but went quietly, slinking through the jungle as quietly as your cat creeps through the grass when she is trying to catch a sparrow. The lions had done enough roaring to scare away other animals who might bother them in their hunt. Now they did not roar any longer, for they did not want to scare away the smaller beasts which were food for them in their hunger.
"I'm going to leave you for a while now, Nero," said Mr. Lion, after a bit. "You will have to get along by yourself. But don't forget the lessons your mother and I taught you."
"Where are you going?" asked Nero.
"I am going to the front, to march along with the older men lions," said Nero's father. "We are going to lead you young lions where there will be good hunting."
"I shall like that," growled Nero, and he sprang on a tree trunk as he passed, and dug deep into the soft bark.
"Hi! Quit that! You're scattering bark in my eyes!" said a voice behind Nero. It was not a loud voice, for one has to be quiet when hunting in the jungle.
"Who's there?" asked Nero, thinking for a moment it might be the crocodile who had tossed him into the jungle pool.
"It is I—Switchie," was the answer.
"Oh, are you hunting, too?" asked Nero, glad to find that he knew some one among the lions besides his father. "Have you killed anything yet?"
"No, not yet. But I shall pretty soon," answered Switchie. "This isn't my first hunt. I've been out at night before."
"Isn't it great!" said Nero. "I hope I can kill a big buffalo. That would make a fine meal!"
"Yes, I should say it would!" exclaimed Switchie. "But you had better leave the buffaloes to your father and the other big men lions. They always take them. It takes a big lion to catch a buffalo, and even then sometimes the buffaloes kill a lion."
"How?" asked Nero.
"With their sharp horns," answered Switchie. "Buffaloes have terribly sharp horns. Better look out for them. Better stick to the goats and the sheep, or even a rabbit, until you learn more about hunting. As for me, I am old enough now to try for a buffalo, I think. So if you see one, tell me, and I'll kill it and give you some."
"Well, I guess I'm nearly as big and strong as you," growled Nero. "If I see a buffalo I'll jump on his back, and strike him with my paw."
"All right. But if you get hurt don't say I didn't tell you to be careful," warned Switchie. "Now come on! We must hurry or we shall be left behind. Ho for the jungle hunt!"
The two boy lions hurried on after the others. Ahead of them they could hear, faintly, the tread of the older beasts as they walked along, looking for something to strike and kill, to stop the terrible hunger. The lions only went on a hunt when they wanted something to eat. They did not kill for fun. It was their way of getting a living.
Suddenly, up in front, there sounded a crash among the tangled vines,
"What's that?" asked Nero of Switchie.
"Oh, that isn't any thing. Don't be afraid," answered the other lion.
"I'm not afraid!" said Nero. "Only, I want to learn things. I never hunted in the jungle at night before, and I don't know so much about it as you do. What was that noise?"
"Oh," said Switchie, easily, "that, I suppose, was my father, or yours, killing some big animal. Maybe it was a buffalo. We'll soon find out."
And the two boy lions did. As they came to an open place in the jungle they saw Nero's father and that of Switchie crouching near something big and black lying on the ground. Off to one side was a lion, licking, with his big red tongue, a sore place on his leg.
"What happened?" asked Nero quickly, of his father.
"We killed a buffalo, Cruncher and I," said Mr. Lion, as he nodded toward Switchie's father, whose name was Cruncher. "We killed a buffalo, but my cousin, Chaw, is hurt. The buffalo stuck him with one of his horns. Then I struck down the buffalo. Here, Nero, is a bit of meat for you, and, Switchie, you may have some. But not much. This meat belongs to Cruncher and me. We will give you a little, but, if you want any more, you must hunt for yourselves. I fed you when you were a little baby lion, Nero, but now that you are big you must learn to feed and hunt for yourself."
And this, too, is the law of the jungle.
Switchie and Nero eagerly ate the bits of meat the older lions gave them, and then the hunt went on. Nero was still very hungry, and so was Switchie, and pretty soon Nero saw a small animal creeping along through the jungle.
"Ah, you are trying to get away from me!" thought Nero, who had gone to one side, and away from the others. "But I'll get you!"
Then he stalked, or crept softly after, the animal, which was a big rabbit, and, all of a sudden, Nero leaped and caught the smaller beast.
"At last I have hunted for myself!" thought Nero, as he ate his meal. "This is great! But it is not enough. I must have more!"
He went farther on in the jungle, and, all at once, he heard a goat bleating.
"Baa-a-a-a! Baa!" bleated the goat.
"Ha! There is something else I can catch for my supper!" thought Nero. "I am getting to be quite a hunter!"
By this time he was far off from his father and the other lions. But he did not mind that. He felt sure he could find his way back when he needed to.
"But first I'll catch that goat," said Nero.
Carefully he stalked through the jungle, coming nearer and nearer to where he could hear the goat bleating. At last, in an open place in the jungle, where the moon shone brightly, Nero saw the goat, a white one. It seemed caught fast in a vine, and could not move.
"Ah, I can easily get this fellow!" thought the boy lion.
He crouched for a spring, and was just going to leap through the air and on the back of the goat when, suddenly, there was a loud sound, like a small clap of thunder, and at once Nero felt a sharp pain in one paw. He rolled over and over, howling and roaring in pain and anger.
At the same time a man hidden on a platform built up in a tree, cried out:
"Oh, I have shot a lion! I have shot a lion!"
Contents
CHAPTER IV
NERO IN A CAVE
Now while the hunter, hidden on a platform in a tree in the jungle, was shouting about having shot a lion, Nero was doing some shouting of another sort. To tell the truth, he was howling and roaring, just as, sometimes, when you step on the puppy's tail, by mistake, of course, the puppy howls. Nero was howling and roaring with pain.
"Oh, what has happened? What is the matter?" cried Nero, in lion talk, of course, as he rolled over and over on the dried leaves of the jungle. "What a terrible pain in my paw! Oh, I wonder if the goat did this! If he did—"
Nero stopped his howling long enough to try to stand up and look through the jungle trees to where he had first seen the goat.
There the bleating animal was. It had not moved.
"Surely that goat couldn't have given me the pain in my paw," said Nero, between his howls. "I wonder what the goat means by staying in one place so long, especially when it must know we lions are out on a night-hunt. And what gave me the pain in my foot, and what made the loud noise?"
As Nero roared, so the other hunting lions roared. Switchie and the smaller lions, like Nero, could not roar very loudly, but Nero's father, and the other full-grown beasts made the very ground tremble with their rumblings.
At the same time there were other jungle cries from other animals. The monkeys, who had been sleeping in the tree-tops, began to chatter and scold, as they swung to and fro.
"What's the matter? What's the matter?" asked one gray-haired monkey, who must have been very old. "What's all the noise about? It reminds me of the time a monkey named Mappo, who once visited here, had the toothache one night and howled until morning. Some of you monkeys howl just like Mappo did, though he was a merry chap most of the time."
"Where is Mappo now?" asked a small baboon, which is another kind of monkey.
"Oh," replied the gray-haired chap, "Mappo went to a far country on a trip, and had many wonderful adventures. He joined a circus, and was put in a book."
"The lions are on a night-hunt," said a middle-sized monkey, who climbed down a tree to take a look. "The lions are hunting, and one of them seems to be hurt, by the way he howls."
"Very likely," said the old monkey. "I thought I heard a gun. That means hunters are about. I saw some of them in the jungle to-day, but I kept out of sight. Well, if hunters are hunting and lions are hunting, we monkeys had better stay up in the trees."
And the monkeys did. But of course that did not make the pain in Nero's foot any better. The lion boy howled and roared by turns, and with his big, rough, red tongue, he licked the place where his paw hurt. That is the only way lions have of making well their sore places; by licking them with their tongues or letting cold water run on the hurt place. But just then there was no water where Nero could get it.
"What's the matter with you, Nero?" roared the voice of Mr. Lion through the black jungle. "What are you howling about?"
"Oh, I'm hurt!" said the lion boy. "I saw a goat and tried to jump on it. Then I heard some little thunder, and my paw hurt and the goat is still there."
"Ha! That was a trap!" cried Mr. Lion. "That goat was tied there to a tree by a rope, so he would bleat and make you come closer. Then a hunter, hidden in a tree, must have shot you."
And this is exactly what had happened. The hunter knew that a lion would come close to try to catch the tied goat, when it bleated, and the man waited.
Illus
Page 38
View larger image
Then, when the man, hiding on a platform built in a tree, saw Nero, as the moon shone now and then, he fired his big rifle. But he did not kill a lion, as he thought. He only made Nero lame in one paw, and as the lion boy rolled away as quickly as he could the man lost sight of him. And though he and some other hunters who were with him tried later to find Nero, they could not. He had run away; and I will tell you how he did it.
"Come, lions!" called Nero's father to the hunting band, when Nero had told what had happened to him. "Come, we must not hunt here any longer. If one hunter shot Nero, other hunters may shoot at us. We had better hunt somewhere else. Come, we will run away. The jungle is big enough for us to hide from the hunters. But, before we go, we will give a loud roar so the hunters will know we are not afraid. All ready now, my brothers. Roar! Roar! Roar!"
And how those lions roared! You could have heard them a mile away, for they all roared at once, and the ground fairly trembled. Even Nero, hurt as he was, helped in the roaring.
"Come on now, Nero! Follow us!" called Mr. Lion to the boy cub who was shot. "You will have to run on three legs, but you have done that before. You did it once when you got a big thorn in your paw. Come along, follow us and we will hunt in another part of the jungle."
So the lion band turned away from the place where the goat was tied and where the hunters were hidden, and Nero followed. But it was not easy for the cub lion, and soon he began to limp and fall behind.
"What's the matter?" asked Switchie, as he saw that his chum was not keeping up with the rest. "Can't you run along faster?"
"No, I can't," answered Nero. "And I guess you couldn't either, on only three legs."
"Well, maybe I couldn't," replied Switchie. "I'm sorry you were shot, Nero. I'll stay behind and walk with you. Then you won't be lonesome."
"Thank you," answered Nero, using lion talk, of course.
So Switchie stayed behind with Nero, going slowly, as the wounded lion had to go. But soon the others—the big and little lions who were not hurt began to get far ahead.
"Come on, Nero! Come on!" they roared. "And you too, Switchie! Come along here! Hurry up!"
"I'll just run on ahead and see what they want," said Switchie to Nero. "I'll tell them you can't go fast, and that they must wait for us. I'll run up ahead and tell them this, and then come back here to you."
"All right, thank you, I wish you would," growled Nero, and he did not feel very happy, for his paw hurt him very much. "I'll wait here for you," he said, as he sat down on a pile of leaves.
So Switchie ran on ahead to tell the others. But while he was gone something happened that changed Nero's whole life, and really was the cause of his going to a circus.
I'll tell you about it.
As Nero sat on the pile of leaves, waiting for his friend Switchie to come back, he suddenly heard a noise in the jungle behind him. He saw some lights flashing and he heard the sound of talk. It was the voices of men—the same sort of voice that had shouted:
"I have shot a lion!"
Nero pricked up his ears and listened as hard as he could.
"Those are hunters!" said the boy lion to himself. "They are coming after me! I must run away and hide! I can't wait for Switchie to come back! I must hide!"
As I have said, the moon now and then shone in the jungle, making it light enough for men to see to shoot. But the lights Nero saw flashing were not moonbeams. They came from lanterns carried by the hunters.
"Here is a mark where a lion has been!" cried one hunter, flashing his light. "This must be the one I shot! Come on, we'll get him yet!"
And these were the voices Nero heard. The wounded lion boy did not wait any longer. Up he sprang, and, running on three legs, and making no noise, off through the dark jungle he hurried. His only idea was to get away and hide.
Suddenly Nero saw a blacker patch in the half darkness. He knew at once what it was. It was the opening, or front door, of a cave.
"It isn't the cave where I live," thought the lion boy, "but it will do very well for me to hide in."
So Nero crawled into the cave with his sore paw, and lay down on some dried grass, as far back as he could get. And the hunters, with their guns and lanterns, came on through the jungle, looking for a lion to kill.
Contents
CHAPTER V
NERO IN A TRAP
Tramp, tramp, tramp came the hunters through the jungle, flashing their lights and looking for the lion which one of them had shot while the hunter was hidden on the platform in a tree. But Nero, cowering away back in the dark cave, kept very still and quiet, and he heard the hunters walk right past his hiding place.
"Good!" thought the boy lion. "They haven't found me! I'm all right so far; but I wonder how long I will have to stay here, and what the other lions will do."
Poor Nero felt sick and in pain, and he was lonesome. It's as bad, I think, for a jungle lion to be this way as it would be for your dog. But still Nero did not dare come out of the cave for fear of the hunters.
"I'll just have to stay here," thought Nero, "until it's safe to come out. Guess I might as well go to sleep."
So Nero curled up on the dried grass in the cave. He knew some other lion once must have used the same cave for a sleeping place, as the grass bed was made up just as Nero's was in the home cave.
"It's a good thing I found this place," thought Nero. "But I wish my father and mother and Chet and Boo were here with me. Yes, and I even wish Switchie were here. I wonder what he is doing!"
And so, wondering, Nero fell asleep in the jungle cave. How long he slept he did not know, for it was as dark as night in the cavern, no matter whether or not the sun shone outside, and Nero was far back from the front door of the cave. When Nero awakened he tried to stand up and walk.
But the moment he put his sore paw down on the stone floor of the cave, he felt such a pain that he let out a howl and then a roar. But as soon as he had done this he knew he had better keep quiet.
"For the hunters may be around the cave yet, outside, and may hear me," thought Nero. "But, oh, how my foot hurts!"
And indeed it did, for it was all swelled up because of the bullet that had gone in from the hunter's gun. Nero could not step on his paw, and he had to limp around on three legs.
"I can't go out of the cave while I'm this way," he thought. "I could not run very fast through the jungle, and if the hunters were to see me, lame as I am, they surely would catch me."
Nero knew something about the hunters in the African jungle, for he had often heard his father and the other lions talk about the men with guns. Some of the older lions had even been shot at, and one or two of them had scars on them, to show where the bullets had gone in. But the shot places had
"What happened to them?" Nero asked one day.
"Oh, I suppose some of them were killed dead by a gun," said old Bounder, a toothless lion who could chew only soft scraps of meat. "Others must have been caught in traps and taken away."
And Nero thought of this talk as he licked his sore paw in the jungle cave. What had happened to him was exactly like what had happened to some of the lions Bounder used to know.
"But I am still here," thought Nero; "and when my father or Switchie comes to find me they will know what has happened to me. But I wish they would hurry!"
Nero hopped on three legs about the cave. He was very thirsty, as all animals are after a meal and a sleep, and, besides, he was hot and feverish from his hurt paw. He wanted a drink very much.
Now, when a wild animal wants a drink of water he does not do as you boys and girls can do—go to a faucet or the pump and get a drink. Lions in the jungle can't get water whenever they want it, and the only way they have of telling where some may be—that is unless they live near a spring or a pool—is by smelling.
And so Nero began sniffing to see if he could smell water in the cave, as he knew he dared not go outside. And pretty soon, to his delight, he caught the sweet smell of a spring. He walked in the direction from which the smell came, and soon he heard the trickle of water. And, a little later, he came to a small spring in the far end of the cave. There was a little pool of water, and Nero took a big drink. Then he let some of the cool water run on his paw, and this made the hurt place feel better.
Nero's foot was so sore that he could not go out of the cave for two days, for it was all he could do to limp around in the cavern and get drinks of water. He dared not go outside. And in these two days he became very hungry, so that at last he felt that he must go out and see if he could not find some meat to eat.
Very carefully he poked his head outside the cave. The sun was shining brightly in the jungle, and it was nice and warm. Nero looked this way and that for a sign of a hunter, but he saw none. Then, a little distance off, he saw a small animal eating some leaves.
"There is my dinner if I can only get it," said Nero to himself. "I must try and see how much of a hunter I shall make on three legs."
Carefully, as he had been taught by his father and mother, and as he had done on the night of the big hunt when he had been hurt, Nero began to creep toward the small animal. And he caught it, too, in spite of his sore paw.
"Now I feel better!" said Nero, after his meal. "I think it will be all right to stay out of the cave for a while. I can get along better than at first, and the hunters do not seem to be around here. I'll go to the home cave now, and I'll have a great story to tell the others."
But Nero was not going to find it as easy to get home through the jungle as he had hoped. In the first place, he did not know his way, and, in the second place, he had to go very slowly. For his paw, though it was getting better, was not well yet, and sometimes, when he knocked it against a stone or a tree, it pained him so that he would have to sit down and rumble and roar and howl. But he did not howl very loudly, for this might have brought the hunters, who, he feared, might try to shoot him again.
As I have said, Nero did not know his way back home through the jungle. It had been dark when he started out with his father on the night-hunt, and he had not noticed the way they had slunk along. Then, too, Nero expected his father would be with him to show him the way back. But something had happened, as you know, to make everything different. And when Nero ran away from the hunters, and hid in the cave, he had gone farther and farther away from his own folks and home, though, at the time, he did not know it.
"If only I can get back to my own cave I'll be all right," thought the lion boy. "I must try as hard as I can to find my cave. And how I do wish I could see my father and mother, and Boo and Chet!"
So Nero wandered to and fro in the jungle, now and then stopping to drink from a pool or a spring, and when he was hungry he hunted small animals, that he could easily catch. He did not dare to go after big animals when his paw was so sore.
"If I should see a buffalo now, I'd have to run away from him," thought Nero. "But when I get well, and bigger and stronger, I'll jump on a buffalo's back, just as my father did!"
So Nero wandered on and on in the jungle, but he did not find the home cave for which he was looking. Here and there wandered the boy lion, always hoping that he might find some animal path that would lead him home. But he did not. Day after day passed, and Nero was no nearer home than at first.
Then he began to know what had happened.
"I am lost!" he thought. "I have lost my way. I must ask some of the jungle animals how to get home."
But this was not easy. Most of the jungle animals were afraid of the lion, though he was not yet full grown, and when he roared at them, to ask where his cave was, they thought he was trying to scare them or catch them, and they ran away.
The larger animals, like the elephants, who went about in herds, and who were not afraid of one lion who was all alone, did not bother to answer Nero, or else they said they knew nothing of his home.
"Do you know where I live?" asked poor, lost Nero of the monkeys he saw hopping about in the trees. "Where is my home cave? And where are Boo and Chet?"
"We don't know," answered the monkeys. "All we know is that we sit in the trees and eat coconuts when we can get them. We never saw your cave, and, besides, we don't like lions, anyhow."
Poor Nero did not know what to do, so he wandered on, eating when he could, and drinking when he came to a pool or a spring.
"If I could only meet some other lions one of them would take me home," he thought.
But the part of the jungle where Nero now was did not seem to have any lions in it except himself. By this time his paw was nearly well, and he could run about almost as fast as at first.
Once Nero came to a spring when he was very thirsty, and, as he was drinking, having driven away a lot of monkeys who were taking up the water in their paws and sipping it, all at once he felt himself knocked over as he had been knocked by the crocodile that time.
"Here! Who's doing that?" asked Nero, as he got up from the dust, where he had been knocked. "Who did that?"
"I did!" answered a loud voice, and, looking toward the spring, Nero saw an animal the color of an elephant, but not half as large. And on the end of his nose, or snout, the animal had two sharp horns, not as long, though, as the tusks of an elephant.
"Oh, so you knocked me away from the spring, did you?" asked Nero.
"Yes, I did," was the answer. "Don't you know better than to drink before me?"
"Who are you?" asked Nero.
"I am the two-horned rhinoceros," was the answer. "And the only jungle folk who can drink with me, or before me, are the elephants. A hippopotamus can, too, as a hippo, which is his short name, is a friend of mine. But, as they live in the water nearly all the time, they don't have to come to a jungle pool to drink. I had a friend once, named Chunky. He was a happy hippo, and he and I used to drink together."
"What became of him?" asked Nero. He was not angry with the rhinoceros for having knocked him away from the water. That was the
"What became of Chunky? Oh, he ran away and joined a circus, I believe," answered the rhinoceros.
"What's a circus?" Nero wanted to know.
"Oh, please don't bother me," replied the two-horned animal. "I am too thirsty to talk," and he drank a lot of water. Then, when he went away, it was Nero's turn. And after the lion had quenched his thirst he thought of asking the rhinoceros the way to the lost cave. But the rhinoceros was gone.
"I guess I'll have to find my own way home," thought poor Nero, as he wandered on and on in the jungle.
Several weeks passed, and though Nero grew bigger and stronger, he was still a lion cub. And he was very lonesome and homesick, because he could not find his cave. Then, one day, something happened—something very important.
Nero was very hungry, not having been able to get anything to eat for a long time, when, all at once, he smelled something good. It was meat—just what he wanted—and, looking along a jungle path used by wild animals, he saw, lying on a pile of leaves, a chunk of goat flesh.
"Ah, there is a meal for me!" thought Nero, and then, his paw being well again, he gave a spring, and landed right on the meat.