Nero, the Circus Lion | Page 8

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!"
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