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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 whatgave 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 tryto catch the tied goat, when it bleated, and the man waited.
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He licked the place where his paw hurt.
He licked the place where his paw hurt.Page 38
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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. "Youwill 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 themyou 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 flashingwere 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.
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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 haveused 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 throughthe 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 healed. And among the stories the older lions told when they came to the cave where Nero lived, were tales of lion friends who had gone out on jungle hunts and had never returned.
"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, forthis 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 sawyour 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 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 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.
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!"
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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 atsuch 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 coveredthe hole with little sticks and leaves, so they would easily break if a big animal, like Nero, jumped on them.
And that is just what Nero had done. He saw the piece of meat on the ground, and jumped straight for it. But he landed in the middle of the sticks and leaves, and fell into the hole.
That is how Nero was caught, and he did not like it at all. He wanted to be loose, to roam through the jungle as he liked. He wanted to try to find his father and his mother and Chet and Boo. But they were far away.
And, while I think of it, I might tell you that for a long time after Nero was lost, that night of the hunt, Mr. Lion looked everywhere for the boy lion. But Nero could not be found, and his father and mother and the other lions thought he had been killed by the hunters. They never saw him again, and, for a time, felt very sad. But so many things happened in the jungle that Mr. and Mrs. Lion soon forgot Nero. That's the way with animals. They are not like us. And so it was that Nero's father and mother never really knew what happened to him. They might find out if they could read this book, but that, of course, can't be done.
Now we'll get back to Nero. There he was in the bottom of a big hole, and up at the top wasthe black African trapper looking down on him. Pretty soon other hunters and trappers came to see the lion that had been caught alive.
"He's a fine big fellow, Chaki," said one black man to the trapper who had been so pleased when Nero was caught. "What are you going to do with him?"
"Oh, I am going to sell him to a white animal man who comes from across the sea in a big boat called a ship," answered Chaki, the trapper.
"And what will the white animal man do with a live lion?"
"He buys him to sell to a circus," answered Chaki.
"And what is a circus?" asked the other black man.
"I don't know," answered Chaki, "except that far across the ocean white people like to pay money to look at wild animals such as we have in our jungle. That's all I know about a circus. The white animal man told me that."
"Ha! A circus!" laughed the other black man. "And people pay money to look at wild animals? Well, they should come to the jungle. They could see all the animals they want for nothing."
And of course we could, I suppose, only very few of us can go to jungles, and so we go to circuses instead.
Nero, down on the bottom of the hole, listened to the talk of the black men up above. He did not understand any of it, or he might have remembered that word "circus." The rhinoceros, who had knocked him away from the drinking pool, had spoken of a "circus" where Chunky, the happy hippo, went. But Nero was too frightened and in too much pain to pay any heed to what the men said.
And then began a very unhappy time for our lion friend. It was such an unhappy, sad time that I am not going to tell you very much about this part of Nero's life. I'm going to skip over it and come to the funnier, happier part.
For, after the lion had thrashed about on the bottom of the pit for some time, the black African trapper let down ropes and tangled the lion all up in them. Then Nero was hauled to the top of the pit and put into a big wooden cage. He tried to get out, by striking the bars with his paws, and biting them with his teeth, but they were too strong. Then he lay down in a corner of his cage and shut his eyes. He did not like to look out through the bars at the jungle, when he could no longer roam about as he liked. Poor Nero was a prisoner—a caged wild animal.
For many days Nero was kept in the cage in the jungle near the hut of the black trapper. At first the lion would not eat, but at last he grew sohungry that he had to take some of the meat they thrust through the bars of the cage to him. And when he had eaten and taken some water, Nero felt better. But he was still cross and unhappy, and whenever any of the black Africans came near his cage Nero would suddenly stick out his paws and try to scratch them. But they knew enough to keep out of his way.
Then, one day, Nero felt his cage being suddenly lifted up on long poles, which the black men put across their shoulders, and so they carried the caged lion through the jungle. They wouldn't trust Nero to walk by himself. What had happened was that the white animal man, who bought wild animals for his circus, had come along, and, seeing that Nero was a fine lion, had taken him to be sent away across the ocean, from Africa to the United States of America, where there were many circuses.
Nero, still in his cage, was put on board a ship. He was stowed away down in a deep, black hole, deeper and blacker than the jungle pit into which he had fallen, and then began a sea voyage.
Nero didn't like this a bit. Sometimes he seemed to be standing on his head, and again he would be on his feet. At other times he seemed to roll over and over in a regular somersault. And these somersaults weren't at all like the ones he used to turn by accident, when he was playingtag in the jungle with his brother and sister, or with Switchie.
"Oh, dear, I don't like this at all!" grumbled Nero, in his cage in the ship. "I wish I could go back to the jungle. Oh, here I go again—upside down!"
And over he went, cage and all. What was happening was that the ship was in a big storm, and was being tossed up and down on great ocean waves, and that Nero's cage had got loose and was being flung about.
Our lion friend was seasick, and he had a dreadful time. More than once he wished himself back in the jungle, but he could not get there.
After many days the ship stopped tossing to and fro. It had crossed to the other side, with Nero on board, and was now tied up at a dock in New York. Then Nero felt himself being hoisted up in his cage, and, for the first time in many days, he saw the sun again and smelled fresh air. And, oh, how good it was!
It was not like the air of the jungle, for it was cooler, and Nero had been used to being very hot nearly all the time. But he did not mind being a bit cool.
Nero's cage was hoisted out of the hold, the deep, black hold of the ship, and slung on a big automobile truck with some boxes and barrels. Nero was the only wild animal, and people passing along on the dock stopped to look into the big wooden cage at the tawny yellow lion who had been brought all the way from the jungle.
Away started the auto-truck, giving Nero a new kind of ride. He would much rather have walked, but of course a lion can't go about loose in the streets of New York, though they do let the elephants and camels walk in a circus parade. But Nero was not yet in a circus.
Nero looked out through the bars of his cage as he was carted through the streets of New York.
"My, this is a queer jungle!" thought the lion. "Where are the trees and the tangled vines and the snakes and monkeys and other animals? All I see are men and other queer creatures. This isn't at all like my jungle!"
And of course it was not, being a big city. There are not many places for trees in a city, you know.
So Nero cowered down in the corner of his cage until he was put in a freight car to be sent to a place called Bridgeport, Connecticut, where some circus men keep their wild animals, to train them, and have them safe during the winter when it is too cold to give shows in the big, white tents.
"Well, this is a new sort of motion," thought Nero, as the train started off. "I don't knowthat I like it, but still it is better than being made to turn somersaults all the while."
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Nero looked out through the bars of his cage.
Nero looked out through the bars of his cage.Page 62
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Indeed it was easier riding on a train than in a ship; at least for Nero. He knew nothing about railroads, nor where he was being taken. But, after a while, during which he did not get much to eat or drink, once more his cage was put on a big auto-truck.
A little later, after being lifted about, and slung here and there, Nero suddenly saw one end of his cage open. The wooden bars, which had been around him ever since he had left the jungle, seemed to drop away.
"Ha! Now, maybe, I can get loose!" thought Nero.
He sprang forward, but, to his surprise, he found himself in very much the same sort of place. But this new cage was larger, and the bars were of iron instead of wood.
Looking through them Nero could see many other just such cages. He sniffed, and he smelled the smell of many wild animals which he knew. He smelled lions, buffaloes, and elephants.
Nero looked around him. He was in a big wooden building, and over to one side were some elephants. At first Nero could not believe it. He rubbed his eyes with his paw and looked again.
Yes, surely enough, they were elephants. They were swaying slowly to and fro, as elephants always sway, and they were stuffing hay into their mouths with their curling trunks.
"Oh, am I back in the jungle?" asked Nero aloud, speaking in animal talk.
"The jungle? No, I should say not!" cried a big jolly-looking elephant. "This isn't the jungle."
"Then what is it?" asked Nero.
"It's a circus," said the elephant. "This is a circus, and we are glad to have you with us, jungle lion. My name is Tum Tum, what is yours?"
"Nero," was the answer. "And so this is a circus!" went on the lion. "Well, well! I never thought I'd be here!"
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Nero thought the circus a very queer place indeed. It was as queer to him as the wild jungle would be to you if you saw it for the first time. But strange as it was, the circus, where he now found himself, seemed much nicer to Nero than being cooped up in the dark ship or in the freight car.
For there were many wild animals in the circus—other lions, tigers, elephants, camels, giraffes, several cages of monkeys, some wolves, a bear or two, and others that Nero did not see until later. And there was also a queer, wild-animal smell, which Nero liked very much. It was almost like the smell of the jungle, and it made him homesick when he thought of the deep tangle of green vines, the thick trees and the silent pools of water.
"We are glad to have you in our circus," said the elephant, who had called himself Tum Tum, speaking to Nero. "Of course it isn't very lively now, but wait until we get out on the road, giving a show every day in a new place, and traveling about! Then you'll like it!"
"Doesn't the circus stay here every day?" asked Nero, as he looked across to another lion in a cage. Nero hoped this lion would speak to him, but the big fellow seemed to be asleep.
"The circus stay here? I should say not!" cried Tum Tum, speaking through his long trunk. "Why, this is only the winter barn, where we stay when the weather is cold. We don't have any shows in winter. The people don't come in to see us, and we don't do any of our tricks. It is only when the show goes on the road in summer, with the big white tent, all covered with gay flags, and the bands playing music, that we have the good times. Here we just rest, eat, and sometimes learn new tricks."
"Tricks!" exclaimed Nero. "Tricks? Are they something good to eat?"
"Tricks good to eat!" laughed Tum Tum in his jolly voice. "No indeed! Tricks are things you do. But often, after we do ours well, the trainer gives us good things to eat."
"I fell into a big hole in the jungle once," said Nero. "Is that a trick?"
"Not exactly," answered Tum Tum. "Here, I'll show you what a trick is. This is only one of my easy ones, though," and then suddenly the big elephant stood on his hind legs, waving his trunk in the air.
"Oh, so that's a trick," said Nero. "Well, I could do that."
But when he tried to stand up on his hind legs in his cage he could not. He had not learned how to balance himself.
"So you do tricks in a circus, do you?" went on Nero. "That reminds me. In the jungle I heard some monkeys speak of a circus, and also of a chap named Mappo. Is he here?"
"He used to be," said Tum Tum. "Mappo was one of our merriest monkeys. We all liked him, but he went to live with some people. I don't know where he is now. But he was in this circus. And to think of your meeting some of his friends in the jungle! Tell me, did you see any of mine?"
"Well, I met lots of elephants," answered Nero, "but I didn't have much time to stop and talk with them. I met a rhinoceros, though, and he said something about Chunky, a happy hippo, who used to live in the jungle near him."
"Oh, Chunky is here, in this very circus!" cried Tum Tum. "But he stays in a water-tank, so we don't very often see him. He'll be glad to know you met his rhinoceros friend. I'll tell him the first time I get a chance. But, speaking of tricks, there's a chap over there who does some fine ones," and Tum Tum pointed with his trunk to a cage in which was a shaggy, black animal.
"Who is it?" asked Nero.
"Dido, the dancing bear," answered the elephant. "He dances on a platform, which is strapped to my back out in the circus rings; he jumps through a hoop of blazing fire; and he turns somersaults."
"I turned some somersaults too, after they put me in a cage and brought me from the jungle," said Nero, as he thought of his voyage on the ship.
"Well, maybe you can learn to do them here, and that will be a trick," returned Tum Tum. "But you should see Dido, the dancing bear. He surely can dance!"
"Who is talking about me?" asked the shaggy creature in the other cage.
"We are, Dido," answered Tum Tum. "I was just telling the new lion how you dance on a platform over my back."
"Oh, yes," said the bear, opening wide his mouth and showing his red tongue. "And I wish I could soon start to doing that again. I am getting tired of the circus barn. I want to be out in the tent."
"It will soon be warm enough," said Tum Tum. "Summer will soon be here, and then we shall have hot weather."
"Does it get as hot as in the jungle?" Nero asked.
"Sometimes," answered the jolly elephant."But here comes your keeper, I guess. He is going to give you some meat."
And, surely enough, along came a circus man with a big chunk of meat on a large, iron fork. He poked the meat in through the bars of the cage to Nero, and the lion was so hungry that he began eating at once.
The man who had fed him stood in front of the cage, looking at Nero.
"You look like a fine chap," said the man, talking partly to himself and partly to the jungle animal. "I think we shall be good friends, and I will teach you some tricks. Then the boys and girls who come to the circus will want to watch you. Yes, I'll teach you some tricks. Come, let's be friends."
Slowly and carefully the circus trainer reached his hand toward Nero's paw, which was between two bars and partly outside the cage. Nero, looking out of the corners of his eyes as he gnawed the bone and chewed the meat, did not know what the man was trying to do. Perhaps the lion thought that the man was trying to take away the meat.
Whatever he thought, Nero suddenly jumped up and struck with all his force at the man's hand. But the man was too quick. He pulled his hand out of the way, and Nero's paw hit the iron bars. And as it happened to be the pawthat had been struck by the bullet, Nero felt great pain, for the bullet was still in the flesh, though healed over.
"Ouch!" cried Nero, in lion language.
"That will teach you not to strike at me when I am only trying to pat you and be kind to you," said the man with a laugh. "You are beginning to learn things, my lion friend."
The man stayed for some time in front of Nero's cage, talking kindly to the lion, but Nero paid no attention to him. He only ate the meat. Then, when it was all gone, Nero felt thirsty.
"I'll get you some water," said the man, and he did.
"Well, you are kind to me, anyhow," thought Nero, "even if you did try to take away my bone," but of course the man had not tried to do that.
For about a week Nero lived in his circus cage in the big barn, where the animals were kept warm all winter. Nothing much happened, except that the same man, every day, brought food and water to the wild jungle lion. And by this time Nero was not so wild as he had been at first. He gave up trying to break the iron bars with his paws, and no longer tried to bite them with his teeth. They were too strong for him.
Then, one day, the trainer man came again to the lion's cage, with a nice, sweet piece of meat.
"My, how good that is!" said Nero to himself, as he ate it.
As Nero was chewing away, the man slowly put out his hand toward the lion's paw, which was out between the bars. But Nero saw him, and again the old fear came back that the man was going to take away the meat, and Nero did not want that to happen.
"Look out!" roared Nero, in lion talk. "Look out or I'll scratch you!"
"Don't do that!" said another voice. A voice that Nero knew came from the other lion cage, that had recently been moved up near his. "Don't be silly, Nero!" said the other circus lion, whose name was Leo. "I used to be as wild as you are, and live in the jungle. But they caught me and brought me here to the circus; and now I like it very much. I, too, tried to scratch the man when he wanted to touch my paw, but I learned better. So must you. The man is your friend. He will feed you and give you water to drink. So don't scratch him. He only wants to pat you and rub you."
"Oh, well, if he only wants to do that, all right," said Nero. "He can do that. I thought he wanted to take my meat."
And then, when the man saw that Nero was quieting down, he reached out his hand again, and this time he touched Nero's big paw, with itssharp claws. One blow of it would have broken the man's arm, but Nero did not strike the blow. He had learned that the man would not hurt him.
And a few days after this Nero and the trainer had become such good friends that the man could open the iron door and go inside Nero's cage and the lion would only blink his big eyes, and not even growl. He had learned that the man would not hurt him.
And so Nero's circus lessons began. The first one he learned was leaping over a long stick which the man held stretched out in the cage. At the beginning Nero did not know what the stick was for, but he could see that the man did not intend to strike him with it.
The trainer kept bringing the stick nearer and nearer to Nero, who backed into the corner of the cage. At last the lion could back no farther, as he was close against the wall of the cage.
"Well, if he doesn't take that stick out of my way I'll jump right over it!" said Nero to himself. And that is just what he did, and the man clapped his hands in delight, and cried:
"There! You have learned your first trick! That's fine! Now I must teach you more!"
Nero was fast becoming a regular circus lion.