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 l