NERO IN A TRAP
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 have used 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 through the 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, for
this 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 saw your
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!"