One day, about a week after Nero had been tossed into the spring, he noticed his father sharpening his claws on the bark of a tree.
"What's he doing that for?" Nero asked his mother.
"To get ready for the jungle hunt to-night," answered Mrs. Lion. "I heard him say something about taking you, so perhaps you had better sharpen your claws, also."
"I will," answered Nero, and he did, making the bits of bark fly as he pulled it from a tree in the jungle, not far from the cave where he lived.
When it began to get dark, which it does very early in the big African forest, as the thick trees shut out the light of the sun, Nero said to his mother:
"Aren't we going to have any supper?"
"Not to-night—that is, not right away," said Mr. Lion. "You are going to hunt for your supper, Nero."
"But I am very hungry," returned the little lion boy, who was growing bigger and stronger every day.
"Then you will hunt all the better," growled his father. "There is nothing like being hungry to make a good hunter-lion. Come, now is the time I have long waited for—to teach you to hunt in the jungle. Your mother and Chet and Boo are going to have supper with Switchie and his folks. You and I are going to hunt for ourselves. Come, we will go into a part of the jungle where you have never yet been."
And Nero felt very much excited when he heard his father say this. The lion cub felt brave and strong, and he knew that his teeth and claws were very sharp.