One morning not long after the lion hunt, Thorn and his grandfather
started off to the stone yard. They soon came to the deep forest where
they could not see far ahead of them, because the beeches and oaks and
chestnuts grew close together, and under the branches there was a thick
tangle of low bushes.

Old Flint watched carefully as he led the way through the woods. He
listened to every sound, and looked often behind him. Farther along,
the ground was more open; and from a hill they looked far away over
wide level land. Herds of horses and bison were grazing there, and
packs of wolves skulked through the edge of the forest. They waited to
spring upon the animals that should stray from the herds.

Passing on, old Flint came upon the body of a rhinoceros partly eaten,
and he stopped and looked anxiously around.

"This is the work of a tiger," he said; "and he cannot be far off, for
the meat is fresh."

Flint peered through the bushes; but the tiger was not in sight, so he
quickly cut meat from the rhinoceros and walked on slowly.

"The tiger may be somewhere near, sleeping. Keep a sharp look-out,
boy; he is yellow with dark stripes, just the color of the dry grass,
and you can walk almost onto him before you see him. No animal can
hide better than he, and none can walk the forest paths with less noise
from his padded feet."

They had not gone much farther when old Flint stopped and, catching his