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THE LAD AND THE LION ENTERED NORTHERN AFRICA AT A POINT where the desert comes closest to the sea. As they wandered away from the ocean, walking side by side, the youth at the lion's shoulder, they were bent merely upon an expedition of discovery-at least this was true of the boy. About him were strange and wonderful sights that filled him with amazement and delight. The broad stretches of open, rolling country; the hills in the distance; the trees and bushes-all seemed a veritable fairyland to one who had never before dreamed that anything but a dreary waste of tumbling water lay beyond the narrow confines of the drifting derelict that had been his world. Far to the right the lad saw the dark green of dense foliage winding toward the hills. It was the jungle which clothed the banks of a little river that wound down to the sea. Beyond the mountains lay the desert, but of that the lad knew nothing. Just now he was engrossed with those things which were already before his wondering eyes. He bent his steps toward the distant jungle, and beside him paced the great lion, now full-grown and in his prime-a mighty beast of prey, yet still unmindful either of his great strength or of the purpose for which it was intended. The youth, too, had matured. The last few months had witnessed a development in the lad little less marked than that which had taken place in the lion. Each was a splendid specimen of his kind-the two naked beasts who walked side by side and unafraid into the savage wilderness of an unknown world. They were moving up wind, and presently there was wafted down to the sensitive nostrils of the lion a strange and delightful aroma. Up went his massive head. Straight behind extended his long, supple tail, the bushy tuft twitching nervously at the extremity. He gave a low whine, and at the same instant the boy's eyes fell upon that which the lion's
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