made her foot feel
better.

For two years the lion cubs, Nero, Chet and Boo, had lived with their
father and mother in the jungle cave. They learned how to tread softly
on the leaves and twigs of the jungle path, so as to make no noise. They
learned how to creep quietly down to the spring at night to get a drink,
so that the hunters would not hear them.

All about them, in the jungle, lived other wild animals. There were
several families of lions in that same part of the forest, and very
often a herd of elephants would pass by, tramping and crashing their way
through the jungle. The lions never bothered the elephants.

"Where are you going, Nero?" asked his mother of the lion boy cub one
day, as she saw him starting out from the jungle cave. "Where are you
going?"

"Oh, just out to have some fun," he answered. "I'm going to play with
Switchie."

"Switchie," was the name of another lion boy cub, who lived in the cave
next to Nero's. He was about a year older than the lion chap about whom
I am going to tell you in this story. Switchie was called that because
he switched his tail about in such a funny way.

"So you are going to play with Switchie, are you?" asked Mrs. Lion, as
she looked at a place where a sharp stone had cut her foot, though the
sore was now getting better. "Well, if you go to play with that lion boy
don't get into mischief."

"What's mischief, Ma?" asked Nero.

"Mischief is trouble," his mother answered, speaking in lion talk, just
as your dog or your cat speaks its own kind of language. "So don't get
into trouble. Don't go to the spring now to get a drink, for the hunters
may be watching, and may shoot you with an arrow, or with a queer lead
stone, from a thing called a gun, which is worse. So don't get into
mischief."

"I won't," promised Nero, and he meant to keep his word, but then he
didn't count on Switchie. That chap was a bold little lion cub, larger
than Nero, and always up to some trick.

"Hello, Nero!" growled Switchie, when he saw his friend coming along the
jungle path.

"Hello!" growled Nero.

Now please don't imagine, just because these lions growled, that they
were cross. They weren't anything of the sort. That was just their way
of talking. Your dog barks and growls, and that is his way of speaking.
Your cat mews and sometimes growls or "spits," and often purrs,
especially when you tickle her ears. And a lion always growls when he
talks. When he is angry he roars--that's