Once, in the freshness of his first anger, he had roared forth his challenge; now he was silent. When he came to the spot where the boys had stopped before they turned back, he paused and sniffed the air, his tail moving nervously from side to side; then he started at a trot along their trail, head flattened and every sense alert. The great muscles moving in supple waves beneath his tawny hide, his tufted tail held just above the ground, his black mane rippling in the gentle breeze, Numa, the lion, followed the scent spoor of his prey. Dick and Doc were used to long cross-country runs, for many were the paper chases in which they had taken part, and now they were glad that they had developed their muscles and their lungs in clean, out-door exercise, for though they had run now for a long distance, they were neither tired nor out of breath. However, they slowed down to a walk as each was already troubled with the same doubt. It was Doc who first voiced it.

"I didn't think we'd come this far," he said. "Do you suppose we passed the little path leading to the railway, without seeing it?"

"I don't know," replied Dick, "but it certainly seems as though we had come back a whole lot further than we went in. But then, of course, you said it would be great to spend the night in here," he added.

"Well, it would," insisted Doc; "but it wouldn't be very nice to have the train go off and leave us here, forever, and that's just what it may do, if we don't get back to it pretty soon. Let's go on a little way, then if we don't find the path, we'll turn around and go back and try the other fork of the trail."

"What do you suppose made that noise?" asked Dick, presently, as they walked along, peering anxiously into the dense wall of jungle for the opening that they hoped would lead them back to the train. It was the first time that either of them had mentioned the cause of their fright; partly because they had been too busy running and partly because each of them was a little ashamed of his headlong flight.

"Sounded like a lion," said Doc.

"That's what I thought," said Dick.

"Why didn't you wait and see then?" demanded his cousin. "On the train this morning, you said you'd like to see a real lion."

"I didn't see you waiting," Dick shot back. "I guess you were afraid, all right. I never saw anyone run so fast in my life."

"I had to, to keep up with you," replied Doc. "Anyhow, I hadn't lost a lion. Who wants an old lion, anyway?"

"I guess yon don't, fraidy-cat."

"Fraidy-cat nothing," replied Doc. "I'm not afraid of any old lion. All you got to do is look 'em right in the eye, an'--"

"And what?"

"An' they put their tail between their legs and beat it."

"An umbrella's a good thing to frighten a lion with," offered Dick.

"Say, look at that big rock!" exclaimed Doc, pointing to a vine covered, rocky outcropping, around which the rail disappeared just ahead.

"We didn't pass anything like that when we came in."

"No," admitted Dick, "we didn't. That means that we are sure enough on the wrong trail. Let's turn around and go back to the other fork."

Together they turned to retrace their steps. Before them the trail ran quite straight for almost a hundred yards, and there, just at the end of it, a great black-maned lion emerged into full view. Dick and Doc stood frozen in their tracks and the lion stopped, too, and surveyed them. It seemed a very long time to the boys that they stood there, but it really could have been only a moment. Then the lion opened his mouth in the most terrific roar those boys had ever heard in all their lives, and, still roaring, moved toward them.

"Quick! the trees!" whispered Dick, as though fearful that the lion would overhear him.

As the boys sprang for the nearest tree Numa broke into a trot. It was then that Doc caught his toe beneath a root and fell headlong to the ground. The lion seemed very near, yet Dick turned back and seizing Doc helped him to his feet. All instant later, as the lion charged in real earnest, at a terrific speed, the boys were clambering swiftly into the lower branches of a great tree that overspread the trail. Roaring angrily, Numa sprang into the air, his mighty talons unsheathed to seize and drag them down. He missed them, but by a margin so narrow that one of his claws touched the heel of Dick's shoe. With an agility far beyond their own dreams Dick and Doc climbed high above the menace of the angry beast of prey, finally seating themselves upon a limb that projected above the trail. Beneath them the lion stood glaring up, with round, yellow-green, blazing eyes.