, 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!"

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