09 Lion Adventure by Willard Price Read Free Book Online

hornet.’
    The kitten, finishing his milk, looked up and miaowed. It was hard to believe that this innocent little thing would become the king of beasts, the terror of the jungle. Hal reached down and rubbed the cat behind the ears. It responded as any house cat would, with a purr. The purr was like a deep note played on an organ.
    ‘I’ll show you another catty thing a lion does,’ Hal said. ‘Give me that bottle of after-shave lotion.’ ‘You’re not going to shave Flop.’ ‘Never fear.’ He took out his handkerchief and sprinkled some drops of lotion on it. He put the perfumed handkerchief on the ground under Flop’s nose.
    Flop flipped. The fragrance sent him into a complete tailspin. He rolled on the handkerchief, sniffing, moaning, and gurgling. He seemed to be chuckling with delight. He rubbed his cheeks into the sweet-smelling handkerchief.
    ‘Just like a cat with catnip,’ Roger said. ‘Exactly like a cat,’ Hal agreed. ‘He’d behave much the same way over catnip but he likes perfume better.’
    ‘What is there about perfume to send him into such a tizzy?’
    ‘Doesn’t it do the same to human beings - more or less? At least, they enjoy it. Funny thing - it doesn’t excite the girl lion so much. It’s the boy lion who really falls apart. And it isn’t true of all the big cats. The leopard or the tiger can take it or leave it. Perhaps the lion is more closely related than they are to the house cat.’
     
    It would have been pleasant to play with Flop all day, but there were more important things to be done.
    Leashing Flop to the leg of a bed and leaving him to enjoy his shaving lotion, they set out on their quest for man-eaters.
    Where should they look? The railway workers were scattered along three miles of track. It was impossible for the boys to see what was happening three miles away, or even one mile or a half mile off.
    In fact a lion might be lying in the grass only a few hundred yards distant and not be seen. A lion can flatten himself almost to the ground and remain perfectly still for long periods of time. His brown fur is like the brown grass all around him, and if he wears a patch of black it looks like a bush.
    The boys climbed to the roof of the station and used their binoculars.
    ‘It’s no good,’ Hal said. ‘We’re not high enough. A lion could be behind any one of those thorn bushes. Or behind that tall grass. Or behind an anthill.’
    They climbed down again. There seemed nothing to do but to start at one end and patrol the track to the other end of the three-mile stretch.
    They slowly walked the track, guns in hand, Hal keeping watch on one side and Roger on the other. As they went by the campground they happened to see Dugan come out of his tent. He also carried a gun. He stopped when he saw the boys and struck off in another direction.
     
    It was slow and careful work, examining every tuft of grass to be sure it was not a lion, asking the men along the way if they had seen anything, looking for the footprints of big cats.
    They had not been at it more than half an hour when a man came running down the track crying, ‘Simba!” The boys ran to meet him. The man fell to the ground, gasping, trying to get his breath back, and pointing down the track.
    ‘How far?’ Hal asked.
    ‘Five minutes fast.’ Africans did not measure distance in miles but in time. Five minutes fast meant the distance you could cover in that time if you went on the run.
    The boys ran. It was a good mile before they came upon a cluster of men looking at something on the ground They pressed through the crowd and found what they had dreaded to find - a dead man, victim of the claws and jaws of a lion.
    ‘Did you see the lion?’ Hal asked the foreman of the gang.
    ‘I saw,’ said the foreman. ‘A very great lion, brown on the sides, black as night on top.’
    It must be Black Mane, thought Hal.
    “Where were you?’ said the foreman bitterly. ‘You never here when we need you.’
    ‘We