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"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 ove...
"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 ...
And Nero felt very much excited when he heard his father say this. The lion cub felt brave and strong, and he knew that his teeth and claws were very sharp.
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.
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 har...
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,...
"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...
"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 ...
"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."