Cub leader's ramble starting late with tons to carry (7)
I believe the answer is:
tigress
'tons to carry' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'cub leader's ramble starting late' is the wordplay.
'cub leader's' becomes 't' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ramble' becomes 'digress' (I've seen this before).
'starting late' means to remove the first letter (the word begins later than normal).
'digress' with its first letter taken away is 'igress'.
't'+'igress'='TIGRESS'
'with' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tigress that I've seen before include "dangerous animal" , "Striped feline female" , "Large female cat" , "Fierce woman" , "Female striped cat" .)