All of a sudden Boo, who up to then had no name, heard some one coming along the jungle path, stepping on twigs and tree branches and making them crack. By this sound the little girl lion cub knew some one was coming.
"That must be my mother," thought Boo. "I'll just hide behind this piece of rock, and then I'll jump out and make believe to scare her. It will be lots of fun."
So Boo hid behind the rock near the front door of the cave-house, and, when the noise came nearer, the little girl lion jumped out and cried: "Boo!" or something that sounded very much like it.
But the little girl lion had made a mistake. Instead of her mother who was coming along the jungle path, it was a big prickly hedgehog with sharp quills all over his back, and when Boo put out her paw she was stuck full of stickery quills. The quills in a hedgehog's back are loose, and come out easily.
"Boo! Boo!" roared the little lion cub girl, but this time she was crying instead of trying to make believe scare some one. The hedgehog, however, was very much frightened—almost all the jungle animals were afraid of the lions—and this hedgehog ran away.
But the little girl lion's paw hurt her very much, and when a little later, Mrs. Lion came back, with something to eat, and found out what had happened, she said Boo had been very foolish.
And when Mr. Lion heard the story, and Nero and Chet had been told about it, they all said that "Boo" would be a very good name for the little sister lion.
"I don't care what you call me," said Boo, speaking in lion talk of course. "I don't care what my name is, if you'll only get these hedgehog stickers out of my paw."
Then they pulled the hedgehog spines out of the little girl lion's paw, and she washed it in cool water at the spring, which 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.