Nero, the Circus Lion | Page 2

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!" growled Nero.
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