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 ove