Part 6 (1/2)

”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 law of the jungle, just as Nero had driven away the monkeys.

”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 pa.s.sed, 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.

But something very strange happened. Nero suddenly felt himself falling down. Down and down he went, into a big hole, and the meat and the pile of leaves went with him. Down into a black pit fell Nero, and, as he toppled in, a black African man shouted:

”Ha! The lion is in the trap! The lion is in my trap!”

CHAPTER VI

NERO IN A CIRCUS

Nero did not know what had happened to him, except that he had fallen down into a big hole dug in the earth. He did not know what the black African man said about being in a ”trap,” for though Nero could understand lion talk, he did not yet know much about the talk of men.

Later on he was to learn a little about that. Just now he was frightened and hurt, for when he fell down the hole he had struck his paw that had the bullet in it, and, though the sore was healed, it still pained a bit at times.

”I wonder what can have happened to me,” thought Nero, as he tumbled and twisted about on the bottom of the pit, which was partly filled with dried leaves. ”I wonder what this is, anyhow!”

More than once, when a very little lion boy and out walking along the jungle paths with his father and mother, Nero had fallen into a mud puddle or other hole, because he had not yet learned to walk steadily and carefully. But at such times he had easily scrambled out of the hole, or his mother had helped him.

Now Mrs. Lion was not here to do this, and, try as he did, Nero could not get out of this hole. It was too deep, and the sides were too straight. Nero tried hard enough, jumping up and clawing at the dirt, some of which got into his eyes, but jump though he did, and roar though he did, he could not get out.

Up on top, at the edge of the hole, the black African man was jumping about, waving his hands, in one of which was a long, sharp spear, and the African was shouting:

”I have caught a lion! I have a lion in my hole-trap! Whoop-la!”

Of course Nero did not know what all this meant. All he knew was that a man had something to do with his trouble.

”Maybe that is the hunter man who shot me,” thought Nero; ”and now he has caught me because I ran away from him and hid in the cave. Well, he has caught me at last, unless I can get out of this hole.”

But Nero was wrong. This was not the same man who had shot him. This was another man, a trapper of wild animals, and he had dug a deep hole along a jungle path where he knew lions and other animals would walk. Then he covered the hole with little sticks and leaves, so they would easily break if a big animal, like Nero, jumped on them.