CHAPTER I Now ran the kite brings home the night, That mang the bat sets free, the herds are shut in byer and hut, For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Tellen and tush and claw, O hear the call, good hunting all, That keep the jungle law. NIGHT SONG IN THE JUNGLE It was seven o'clock on a very warm evening in the Sione hills, When Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, Scratched himself, yawned and spread Out his paws one after the other, To get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big grey nose, Dropped across her four tumbling squealing-cubs, And the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. Arr, said Father Wolf, it is time to hunt again. He was going to spring downhill, When a little shadow with a bushy tail Crossed the threshold and whined, Good luck, go with you, o' cheaper the wolves, And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children That they may never forget the hungry in this world. It was the jackal, Tabaki, the dish-licker, And the wolves of India despise Tabaki because he runs about making mischief and telling tales, And eating rags and pieces of leather From the village rubbish heaps, But they are afraid of him too, Because Tabaki, more than anyone else in the jungle, Is apt to go mad, And then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone, And runs through the forest, biting everything in his way, Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaki goes mad, For madness is the most disgraceful thing That can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, But they call it dawani, the madness, and run. Enter then and look, said Father Wolf stiffly, But there is no food here. For a wolf, no, said Tabaki, But for so mean a person as myself, A dry bone is a good feast, Who are we, the gilder log, the jackal people, To pick and choose? He scuttled to the back of the cave, Where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, And sat cracking the end merrily. All thanks for this good meal, he said licking his lips. How beautiful are the noble children, How large are their eyes, And so young too. Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men from the beginning. Now Tabaki knew, as well as anyone else, That there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to their faces. It pleased him to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable. Tabaki sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then he said spitefully, Cher Khan, the big one, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me. Cher Khan was the tiger who lived near the Wangunga River, twenty miles away. He has no right, Father Wolf began angrily. By the law of the jungle he has no right to change his quarters without due warning. He will frighten every head of game within ten miles, and I, I have to kill for two these days. His mother did not call him Lungri, the lame one, for nothing, said Mother Wolf quietly. He has been lame in one foot from his birth. That is why he has only killed Kettle.  They will scour the jungle for him when he is far away, and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, we are very grateful to Cher Khan. Shall I tell him of your gratitude? said Tabaki. Out, snapped Father Wolf, out and hunt with thy master. Thou has done harm enough for one night. I go, said Tabaki quietly. He can hear Cher Khan below in the thickets. I might have saved myself the message. Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley that ran down to a little river, he heard the dry, angry, snorily sing-song wine of a tiger who has caught nothing, and does not care if all the jungle knows it. The fool, said Father Wolf, to begin a night's work with fat noise.  Hush! It is neither bullock nor buck he hunts to-night, said Mother Wolf. It is man. The wine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilders woodcutters in gypsy sleeping in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth of the tiger.  The law of the jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killing means sooner or later the arrival of white men on elephants, with guns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the jungle suffers. The reasons the beasts give among themselves is that man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say, and it is true, that man-eaters become mangy and lose their teeth. The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated arrr of the tigerous charge. Then there was a howl, an untigerous howl from Sher Khan. He has missed, said Father Wolf, what is it? Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Sher Khan muttering and mumbling savagely as he tumbled about in the scrub. The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter's campfire and has burned his feet, said Father Wolf with a grunt, Tabaki is with him. Something is coming uphill, said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear, get ready. The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with his hodges under him, ready for his leap. Then if you had been watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world. The Wolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result was that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing almost where he left ground. Man! He snapped, a man's cub, look!  He looked up into Father Wolf's face and laughed. Is that a man's cub? said Mother Wolf. I've never seen one, bring it here. A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mow an egg without breaking it, and though Father Wolf's jaws closed right on the child's back, not a tooth even scratch the skin as he laid it down among the cubs. How little, how naked, and how bold, said Mother Wolf softly. The baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm hide. Ah-ha! He has taken his meal with the others. And so this is a man's cub. Now was there ever a wolf that could boast a man's cub among her children? I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack are in my time, said Father Wolf.  But see, he looks up and is not afraid. The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Sher Khan's great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance. Tobaki, behind him, was squeaking, my Lord, my Lord, it went in here. Sher Khan does us great honour, said Father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry. What does Sher Khan need? My quarry. A man's cub went this way, said Sher Khan. Its parents have run off. Give it to me. Sher Khan had jumped at a woodcutter's campfire, as Father Wolf had said, and was furious from the pain of his burned feet. But Father Wolf knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in by, even where he was, Sher Khan's shoulders in four paws were cramped for one of room, as a man's would be if he tried to fight in a barrel. The wolves are a free people, said Father Wolf. They take orders from the head of the pack, and not from any striped cattle-killer.  Ye choose and ye do not choose. What talk is this of choosing? By the bull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dog's den for my fair dues? It is I, Sher Khan, who speak. The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs, and sprang forward, her eyes like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Sher Khan. And it is I, Rakshah, the demon who answers. The man's cub is mine, lungry mine to me.   And beast of the jungle, lamer than ever thou cameest into the world, go! Father Wolf looked on amazed. He had almost forgotten the days when he won Mother Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she ran in the pack and was not called the demon for a compliment's sake. Sher Khan might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother Wolf, for he knew that where he was she had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave-mouth, growling, and when he was clear he shouted, each dog barks in his own yard, we shall see what the pack will say to this fostering of man-cubs, the cub is mine, and to my teeth he will come in the end, o bush-tailed thieves. Father Wolf threw herself down, panting among the cubs, and Father Wolf said to her gravely, Sher Khan speaks this much truth, the cub must be shown to the pack. Will thou still keep him, Mother? Keep him, she gasped. He came naked by night alone and very hungry, yet he was not afraid.  Keep him? Assuredly I will keep him. Lie still, little frog, o thou mogley, for mogley the frog I will call thee. The time will come when thou wilt hunt Sher Khan, as he has hunted thee. But what will our pack say, said Father Wolf? The law of the jungle lays down very clearly that any wolf may, when he marries, withdraw from the pack he belongs to, but as soon as his cubs are old enough to stand on their feet, he must bring them to pack council, which is generally held once a month at full moon, in order that the other wolves may identify them. After that inspection the cubs are free to run where they please, and until they have killed their first buck, no excuse is accepted if a grown wolf of the pack kills one of them. The punishment is death where the murderer can be found, and if you think for a minute you will see that this must be so. Father Wolf waited till his cubs could run a little, and then on the night of the pack meeting took them and mogley and mother wolf to the council rock, a hilltop covered with stones and boulders where a hundred wolves could hide. Akila, the great gray lone wolf, who led all the pack by strength and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below him sat forty or more wolves of every size and color, from badger-colored veterans who could handle a buck alone, to young black three-year-olds who thought they could. The lone wolf had led them for a year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf trap in his youth, and once he had been beaten and left for dead, so he knew the manners in customs of men. There was very little talking at the rock. The cubs tumbled over each other in the center of the circle, where their mothers and fathers sat, and now and again a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet. Sometimes a mother would push her cub far out into the moonlight to be sure that he was not overlooked. Akila, from his rock, would cry, Ye know the law, ye know the law, look well, o' wolves, and the anxious mothers would take up the call, look, look well, o' wolves. At last, and mother-wolf's neck bristles lifted as the time came, father-wolf pushed mowgli the frog, as they called him, into the center, where he sat, laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened in the moonlight. Akila never raised his head from his paws, but went on with his monotonous cry, look well. A muffled roar came up from behind the rocks, the voice of Sher Khan crying, The cub is mine, mine to me, what have the free people to do with a man's cub? Akila never even twitched his ears. All he said was, look well, o' wolves, what have the free people to do with the orders of any, save the free people, look well. There was a chorus of deep growls, and the young wolf in his fourth year flung back Sher Khan's question to Akila, what have the free people to do with a man's cub? Now the law of the jungle lays down that if there is any dispute as to the right of a cub to be accepted by the pack, he must be spoken for by at least two members of the pack who are not his father and mother. Who speaks for this cub? said Akila, among the free people who speaks. There was no answer, and mother wolf got ready for what she knew would be her last fight if things came to fighting. Then the only other creature who was allowed at the pack council, Baloo, the sleepy brown bear who teaches the wolf cub's the law of the jungle, old Baloo, who can come and go where he pleases because he eats only nuts and roots and honey, grows upon his hind quarters and grunted, the man's cub, the man's cub, he said, I speak for the man's cub, there is no harm in a man's cub, I have no gift of words but I speak the truth, let him run with the pack and be entered with the others, I myself will teach him. We need yet another, said Akila, Baloo has spoken and he is our teacher for the young cub's, who speaks besides Baloo. A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera, the black panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk, everybody knew Bagheera and nobody cared to cross his path for he was as cunning as Tabaki, as bold as the wild buffalo and as reckless as the wounded elephant, but he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree and a skin softer than down. Oh Akila and ye free people, he purred, I have no right in your assembly but the law of the jungle says that if there is a doubt which is not a killing matter in regard to a new cub, the life of that cub may be bought at a price and the law does not say who may or may not pay that price, am I right? Good, good, said the young wolves, who are always hungry, listen to Bagheera, the cub can be bought for a price, it is the law. Knowing that I have no right to speak here, I ask your leave.   Mowgli was still deeply interested in the pebbles and he did not notice when the wolves came and looked at him one by one. At last they all went down the hill for the dead bull and only Achila, Bagheera, Baloo, and Mowgli's own wolves were left, Sher Khan roared still in the night for he was very angry that Mowgli had not been handed over to him. I roar well, said Bagheera under his whiskers, for the time will come when this naked thing will make thee roar to another tune, or I know nothing of men. It is well done, said Achila, men and their cubs are very wise, he may be a help in time. Truly a help in time of need, for none can hope to lead the pack forever, said Bagheera, Achila said nothing, he was thinking of the time that comes to every leader of every pack when his strength goes from him and he gets feebler and feebler till at last he is killed by the wolves and a new leader comes up to be killed in his turn. Take him away, he said to Father Wolf, and train him as befits one of the free people. End of Part 1 of Mowgli's Brothers, Chapter 2 of the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mowgli's Brothers Part 2 and the Hunting Song of the Sione Pack. And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Sione Wolfpack for the price of a bull and on Baloo's good word. Now you must be content to skip ten or eleven whole years, and only guess at all the wonderful life that Mowgli led among the wolves, because if it were written out it would fill every so many books. He grew up with the cubs, though they, of course, were grown wolves almost before he was a child, and Father Wolf taught him his business and the meaning of things in the jungle till every rustle in the grass, every breath of the warm night air, every note of the owls above his head, every scratch of a bat's claws as it roosted for a while in a tree, and every splash of every little fish jumping in a pool meant just as much to him as the work of his office means to a businessman. When he was not learning he sat out in the sun and slept, and ate and went to sleep again. When he felt dirty or hot he swam in the forest pools, and when he wanted honey, Balu told him that honey and nuts were just as pleasant to eat as raw meat, he climbed up for it, and that Bogheera showed him how to do. Bogheera would lie out on a branch and call, Come along, little brother, and at first Mowgli would cling like the sloth, but afterward he would fling himself through the branches almost as boldly as the gray ape. He took his place at the council rock, too, when the pack met, and there he discovered that if he stared hard at any wolf, the wolf would be forced to drop his eyes, and so he used to stare for fun. At other times he would pick the long thorns out of the pads of his friends, for wolves suffer terribly from thorns and burrs in their coats. He would go down the hillside into the cultivated lands by night, and look very curiously at the villagers in their huts, but he had a mistrust of men because Bogheera showed him a square box, with a drop-gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle, that he nearly walked into it, and told him that it was a trap. He loved, better than anything else, to go with Bogheera into the dark warm heart of the forest, to sleep all through the drowsy day, and at night see how Bogheera did his killing. Bogheera killed right and left as he felt hungry, and so did Mowgli with one exception. As soon as he was old enough to understand things, Bogheera told him that he must never touch cattle, because he had been bought into the pack at the price of a bull's life.  That is the law of the jungle. Mowgli obeyed faithfully, and he grew and grew strong as a boy must grow, who does not know that he is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to eat. Mother Wolf told him once or twice that Sher Khan was not a creature to be trusted, and that some day he must kill Sher Khan. But though a young wolf would have remembered that advice every hour, Mowgli forgot it because he was only a boy, though he would have called himself a wolf if he had been able to speak in any human tongue. Sher Khan was always crossing his path in the jungle, far as Akeela grew older and feebler, the lame tiger had come to be great friends with the younger wolves of the pack who followed him for scraps. Anything Akeela would never have allowed if he had dared to push his authority to the proper bounds. Then Sher Khan would flatter them and wonder that such fine young hunters were content to be led by a dying wolf in a man's cub. They tell me, Sher Khan would say, that it counts so ye dare not look him between the eyes, and the young wolves would growl and bristle. Bagheera, who had eyes and ears everywhere, knew something of this, and once or twice he told Mowgli in so many words that Sher Khan would kill him some day. Mowgli would laugh and answer, I have the pack and I have thee, and Baloo, though he is so lazy, might strike a blow or two for my sake. Why should I be afraid? It was one very warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera, born of something that he had heard. Perhaps Ikky, the Parkupine, had told him, but he said to Mowgli, when they were deep in the jungle, as the boy lay with his head on Bagheera's beautiful black skin, little brother, how often have I told thee that Sher Khan is thy enemy? As many times as there are nuts on that palm, said Mowgli, who naturally could not count, what of it, I am sleepy, Bagheera, and Sher Khan is all long, tale and loud talk, like Mow the peacock. But this is no time for sleeping, Baloo knows it, I know it, the pack knows it, and even the foolish, foolish deer know. Tabaki has told thee, too, ho-ho, said Mowgli, Tabaki came to me not long ago with some rude talk, that I was a naked man's cub and not fit to dig pig-nuts, but I caught Tabaki by the tail and swung him twice against the palm tree to teach him better manners. That was foolishness, for though Tabaki is a mischief-maker, he would have told thee of something that concerned thee closely. Hope in those eyes, little brother, Sher Khan dare not kill thee in the jungle, but remember, Akila is very old, and soon the day comes when he cannot kill his buck, and then he will be leader no more. Many of the wolves that looked thee over when thou wast brought to the council first are old, too, and the young wolves believe, as Sher Khan has taught them, that a man-cub has no place with the pack, in a little time thou wilt be a man. And what is a man that he should not run with his brothers? said Mowgli, I was born in the jungle, I have obeyed the law of the jungle, and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn, surely they are my brothers.   There is no one in the jungle that knows that I, Bagheera, carry that bark, the mark of a collar, and yet little brother, I was born among men, and it was among men that my mother died, in the cages of the king's palace at Odepoor. It was because of this that I paid the price for thee at the council, when thou wast the little naked cub, yes, I, too, was born among men. I had never seen the jungle, they fed me behind bars from an iron pan, till one night I felt that I was Bagheera, the panther, and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my paw and came away, and because I had learned the ways of men, I became more terrible in the jungle than Sheer Khan, is it not so? Yes, said Mowgli, all the jungle fear Bagheera, all except Mowgli. O thou art a man's cub, said the black panther very tenderly, and even as I returned to my jungle, so thou must go back to men at last, to the men who are thy brothers, if thou art not killed in the council. But why? But why should any wish to kill me, said Mowgli? Look at me, said Bagheera, and Mowgli looked at him steadily between the eyes.  That is why he said, shifting his paw on the leaves, not even I can look thee between the eyes, and I was born among men, and I love thee little brother, the others they hate thee because their eyes cannot meet thine, because thou art wise, because thou has pulled out thorns from their feet, because thou art a man. I did not know these things, said Mowgli, suddenly, and he frowned under his heavy black eyebrows. What is the law of the jungle? Strike first, and then give tongue. By thy very carelessness they know that thou art a man, but be wise. It is in my heart that when Aquila misses his next kill, and at each hunt it costs him more to pin the buck. The pack will turn against him and against thee. They will hold a jungle council at the rock, and then, and then, I have it, said Barquira, leaping up, go thou down quickly to the men's huts in the valley, and take some of the red flower which they grow there, so that when the time comes thou mayest have even a stronger friend than I, or Baloo, or those of the pack that love thee, get the red flower. By the red flower Barquira met fire. Only no creature in the jungle will call fire by its proper name. Every beast lives in the deadly fear of it, and invents a hundred ways of describing it. The red flower, said Mowgli, that grows outside their huts in the twilight, I will get some. There speaks the man's cub, said Barquira proudly. Remember that it grows in little pots. Get one swiftly, and keep it by thee for time of need. Good, said Mowgli, I go, but art thou sure, O my Barquira? He slipped his arm around the splendid neck, and looked deep into the big eyes, art thou sure that all this is Cherkan's doing? By the broken lock that freed me, I am sure, little brother. Then by the bull that bought me, I will pay Cherkan full tail for this, and it may be a little over, said Mowgli, and he bound it away. That is a man, that is all a man, said Barquira to himself, crying down again, O Cherkan, never was a blacker hunting than that frog caught a vine ten years ago. Mowgli was far and far through the forest, running hard, and his heart was hot in him. He came to the cave as the evening mist rose, and drew breath, and looked down the valley. The cubs were out, but Mother Wolf at the back of the cave, knew by his breathing that something was troubling her frog. It is its own, she said. Some bat-chatter of Cherkan, he called back, I hunt among the plowed fields to-night, and he plunged downward through the bushes to the stream at the bottom of the valley. There he checked, for he heard the yell of the pack hunting, heard the bellows of a hunted somber, and the snort as the buck turned at bay. Then there were wicked bitter hulls from the young wolves, Achila, let the lone wolf show his strength, room for the leader of the pack. Spring Achila! The lone wolf must have sprung and missed his hold, for Mowgli heard the snap of his teeth, and then a yelp as the somber knocked him over with his forefoot. He did not wait for anything more, but dashed on, and the yells grew fainter behind him as he ran into the croplands where the villagers lived. By Hera spoke truth, he panted, as he nestled down in some cattle fodder by the window of a hut. Tomorrow is one day both for Achila and for me. Then he pressed his face close to the window, and watched the fire on the hearth. He saw the husband men's wife get up and feed it in the night with black lumps, and when the morning came and the mists were all white and cold, he saw the man's child pick up a wicker pot plastered inside with earth, fill it with lumps of red-hot charcoal, and put it under his blanket, and go out to tin the cows and the buyer. Is that all, said Mowgli, if a cub can do it there is nothing to fear. So he strode round the corner and met the boy, took the pot from his hand, and disappeared into the mist, while the boy howled with fear. They are very like me, said Mowgli, blowing into the pot as he had seen the woman do. This thing will die if I do not give it thanks to eat, and he dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff. Halfway up the hill he met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like moonstones on his coat. Achila has missed, said the panther. They would have killed him last night, but they needed thee also. They were looking for thee on the hill. I was among the plowed lands. I am ready. See! Mowgli held up the fire-pot. Good! Now I have seen men thrust a dry branch into that stuff, and presently the red flower blossomed at the end of it, or to thou not afraid? No, why should I fear? I remember now, if it is not a dream, how, before I was a wolf, I lay beside the red flower, and it was warm and pleasant. All that day Mowgli sat in the cave tending his fire-pot, and dipping dry branches into it to see how they looked. He found a branch that satisfied him, and in the evening, when Tabaki came to the cave and told him rudely enough that he was wanted at the council-rock, he laughed till Tabaki ran away. Then Mowgli went to the council still laughing. Achila the lone wolf lay by the side of the rock as a sign that the leadership of the pack was open, and Sher Khan, with his following of scrap-fed wolves, walked to and fro openly being flattered. Bagheera lay close to Mowgli, and the fire-pot was between Mowgli's knees. When they were all gathered together, Sher Khan began to speak, a thing he would never have dared to do when Achila was in his prime. He has no right, whispered Bagheera. Say so! He is a dog's son, he will be frightened. Please bring to his feet, free people, he cried. Does Sher Khan lead the pack? What has a tiger to do with our leadership? Seeing that the leadership is yet open and being asked to speak, Sher Khan began, by whom, said Mowgli, are we all jackals to fawn on this cattle butcher? The leadership of the pack is with the pack alone. There were yells of silence thou man's cub. Let him speak. He has kept our law, and at last the seniors of the pack thundered, let the dead wolf speak. When a leader of the pack has missed his kill, he is called the dead wolf as long as he lives, which is not long. Achila raised his old head wearily. Free people, and ye too, jackals of Sher Khan, for twelve seasons I have led ye too and from the kill, and in all that time no one has been trapped or maimed. Now I have missed my kill. Ye know how that plot was made, ye know how he brought me up to an untried buck to make my weakness known. It was cleverly done. Your right is to kill me here on the council rock, now, therefore I ask, who comes to make an end of the lone wolf, for it is my right by the law of the jungle, that ye come one by one. There was a long hush, for no single wolf cared to fight Achila to the death. Then Sher Khan roared, Bah, what have we to do with this tootless fool? He is doomed to die. It is the man-cub who has lived too long. Free people, he was my meat from the first. Give him to me, I am weary of this man-wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle for ten seasons. Be the man-cub, or I will hunt here always and not give you one bone.  And from the marrow of my bones I hate him. Then more than half of the pack yelled, Hey man, hey man, what has a man to do with us?  And turn all the people of the villages against us, clamored Sher Khan. No, give him to me. He is a man and none of us can look him between the eyes. Achila lifted his head again and said, He has eaten our food. He has slept with us. He has driven game for us. He has broken no word of the law of the jungle. Also I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Bagheera's honour is something that he will perhaps fight for, said Bagheera in his gentlest voice. A bull paid ten years ago. The pack snarled. What do we care for bones ten years old? Or for a pledge, said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip. Well, or ye call the free people. No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle. How, Sher Khan, give him to me. He is our brother in all but blood, Achila went on, and he would kill him here. In truth I have lived too long. Some of ye are eaters of cattle, and others I have heard that under Sher Khan's teaching ye go by dark night and snatch children from the villagers doorstep. Therefore I know ye to be cowards, and it is to cowards I speak. It is certain that I must die, and my life is of no worth. Or I would offer that in the man's cub's place. But for the sake of the honour of the pack, a little matter that by being without a leader ye have forgotten, I promise that if ye let the man cub go to his own place, I will not, when my time comes to die, bear one tooth against ye.  That will at least save the pack three lives. More I cannot do. But if ye will I can save ye the shame that comes of killing a brother against whom there is no fault. A brother spoken far and bought into the pack according to the law of the jungle.  Now the business is in thy hands, said Bakheera to Mowgli. We can do no more except fight.  Then he stretched out his arms and yawned in the face of the council. But he was furious with rage and sorrow. For a wolf like the wolves have never told him how they hated him. Listen you, he cried, there is no need for this dog's jabber. Ye have told me so often to-night that I am a man, and indeed I would have been a wolf with you to my life's end, that I feel your words are true. So I do not call ye my brothers any more, but sog, dogs, as a man would. What ye will do and what ye will not do is not yours to say. That matter is with me, and that we may see the matter more plainly. I, the man, have brought here a little of the red flower which ye dogs fear.  Mowgli thrust his dead branch into the fire till the twigs lit and crackled and whirled at above his head among the cowering wolves. Thou art the master, said Bakhira in an undertone. Save Akhila from the death he was ever thy friend. Akhila, the grim old wolf who had never asked for mercy in his life, gave one piteous look at Mowgli as the boy stood all naked, his long black hair tossing over his shoulders in the light of the blazing branch that made the shadows jump and quiver. Good, said Mowgli, staring round slowly, I see that ye are dogs. I go from you to my own people, if they be my own people.  Because I was all but your brother in blood, I promise that when I am a man among men, I will not betray ye to men as ye have betrayed me.  There shall be no war between any of us in the pack, but here is a debt to pay before I go. He strode forward to where Sher Khan set blinking stupidly at the flames, and caught him by the tuft of his chin, by Kira followed in case of accidents. Up, dog, Mowgli cried, up when a man speaks, or I will set that coat ablaze. Sher Khan's ears lay flat back on his head, and he shut his eyes, while the blazing branch was very near.  Thus and thus then, do we beat dogs when we are men. Stir a whisker lungui, and I ram the red flower down thy gullet. He beat Sher Khan over the head with the branch, and the tiger wimpered and whined in an agony of fear. Pa, singed jungle cat, go now, but remember when next I come to the council rock as a man should come. It will be with Sher Khan's hide on my head. For the rest, Akila goes free to live as he pleases. Ye will not kill him, because that is not my will. Nor do I think that ye will sit here any longer, lolling out your tongues as though ye were somebodies, instead of dogs whom I drive out. Thus go! The fire was burning furiously at the end of the branch, and Mowgli struck right and left round the circle, and the wolves ran howling with the sparks burning their fur. At last there were only Akila, Paquira, and perhaps ten wolves that had taken Mowgli's part.  What is it, what is it, he said, I do not wish to leave the jungle, and I do not know what this is, am I dying Paquira? No little brother, that is only tears such as men use, said Paquira. Now I know thou art a man, and a man's cub no longer. The jungle is shut indeed to thee henceforward. Let them fall, Mowgli, they are only tears. So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart would break, and he had never cried in all his life before. Now he said I will go to men, but first I must say farewell to my mother, and he went to the cave where she lived with Father Wolf, and he cried on her coat while the four cubs howled miserably. Ye will not forget me, said Mowgli. Never while we can follow a trail, said the cubs, come to the foot of the hill when thou art a man, and we will talk to thee, and we will come into the croplands to play with thee by night.  I will surely come, said Mowgli, and when I come it will be to lay out Cherkan's hide upon the council rock. Do not forget me, tell them in the jungle never to forget me. The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside alone to meet those mysterious things that are called men. As the dawn was breaking the sambore bell'd once, twice, and again, and a doe leaped up, and a doe leaped up from the pond in the wood with a wildeer sup, this eye scouting alone beheld once, twice, and again. As the dawn was breaking the sambore bell'd once, twice, and again, and a wolf stole back, and a wolf stole back to carry the word to the waiting-pack, and we sought, and we found, and we bade on his track once, twice, and again. As the dawn was breaking the wolf-pack yelled once, twice, and again, feet in the jungle that leave no mark, eyes that can see in the dark the dark, tongue give tongue to it, hark, oh, hark, once, twice, and again. OF MOWGLY'S BROTHERS His spots are the joy of the leopard. His horns are the buffalo's pride. Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide. If ye find that the bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed sambore can gore, ye need not stop work to inform us, we knew it ten seasons before. O'press not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them a sister and brother, for though they are little and fubsy, it may be the bear is their mother. There is none like to me, says the cub in the pride of his earliest kill, but the jungle is large, and the cub he is small. Let him think, and be still. BALU All that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of the Sioni Wolfpack, or revenged himself on Shere Khan the Tiger. It was in the days when Balu was teaching him the law of the jungle. The big, serious old brown bear was delighted to have so quick a pupil, for the young wolves will only learn as much of the law of the jungle as applies to their own pack and tribe, and run away as soon as they can repeat the hunting verse, feet that make no noise, eyes that can see in the dark, ears that can hear the winds in their lairs, and sharp white teeth. All of these are the marks of our brothers except Tabaki the Jackal and the hyena whom we hate. But Mowgli as a man cub, had to learn a great deal more than this. Sometimes Bagheera the Black Panther would come lounging through the jungle to see how his pet was coming on, and would purr with his head against a tree, while Mowgli recited the day's lesson to Balu. The boy could climb almost as well as he could swim, and swim almost as well as he could run. So Balu, the teacher of the law, taught him the wood and water laws, how to tell a rotten branch from a sound one, how to speak politely to the wild bees when he came upon a hive of them fifty feet above ground, what to say to mang the bat when he disturbed him in the branches at midday, and how to warn the water snakes in the pools before he splashed down among them, none of the jungle people like to be disturbed, and all are ready to fly at an intruder. Then too Mowgli was taught the stranger's hunting call, which must be repeated aloud till it is answered, whenever one of the jungle people hunts outside his own grounds. It means, translated, give me leave to hunt here because I am hungry, and the answer is, hunt then for food, but not for pleasure. All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn by heart, and he grew very tired of saying the same thing over a hundred times. But as Bellew said to Bagheera one day, when Mowgli had been cuffed and run off in a temper, a man's cub is a man's cub, and he must learn all the law of the jungle. But think how small he is, said the Black Panther, who would have spoiled Mowgli if he had had his own way. How can his little head carry all thy long talk? Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No. That is why I teach him these things, and that is why I hit him very softly when he forgets. Softly? What doth thou know of softness, old iron feet, Bagheera grunted? His face is all bruised today by thy softness.  I am now teaching him the master words of the jungle that shall protect him with the birds and the snake-people and all that hunt on four feet except his own pack. He can now claim protection if he will only remember the words from all in the jungle. Is not that worth a little beating?  He is no tree-trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. But what are those master words? I am more likely to give help than to ask it. Bagheera stretched out one paw and admired the steel-blue, ripping chisel talons at the end of it. Still I should like to know. I will call Mowgli and he shall say them, if he will. Come, little brother!  That is all one to me, said Baloo, though he was hurt and grieved. Tell Bagheera then the master words of the jungle that I have taught thee this day. Master words for which people, said Mowgli, delighted to show off, the jungle has many tongues I know them all. A little thou knowest, but not much. See, O Bagheera, they never thank their teacher. Not one small wolfling has ever come back to thank old Baloo for his teaching. Say the word for the hunting people, then, great scholar. We be of one blood, ye and I, said Mowgli, giving the words the bare accent which all the hunting people use. Good! Now for the birds. Mowgli repeated with the kite's whistle at the end of the sentence. Now for the snake people, said Bagheera. The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his feet behind, clapped his hands together to applaud himself, and jumped on to Bagheera's back, where he sat sideways, drumming his heels on the glossy skin and making the worst faces he can think of at Baloo. There, there, that was worth a little bruise, said the brown bear tenderly. Someday thou wilt remember me, then he turned aside to tell Bagheera how he had begged the master words from Hathi the wild elephant, who knows all about these things, and how Hathi had taken Mowgli down to a pool to get the snake word from a water snake, because Baloo could not pronounce it, and how Mowgli was now reasonably safe against all accidents in the jungle, because neither snake, bird, nor beast would hurt him. No one then is to be feared, Baloo wound up patting his big furry stomach with pride. Except his own tribe, said Bagheera under his breath, and then allowed to Mowgli, have a care for my ribs, little brother, what is all this dancing up and down? Mowgli had been trying to make himself heard by pulling at Bagheera's shoulder fur and kicking hard. When the two listened to him, he was shouting at the top of his voice, and so I shall have a tribe of my own and lead them through the branches all day long. What is this new folly little dreamer of dreams, said Bagheera? Yes, and throw branches and dirt at old Baloo, Mowgli went on. They have promised me this. Ah! Baloo's big paw scooped Mowgli off Bagheera's back, and as the boy lay between the big four paws he could see the bear was angry. Mowgli, said Baloo, thou has been talking with the bandar log, the monkey people. Mowgli looked at Bagheera to see if the panther was angry too, and Bagheera's eyes were as hard as jade-stones. Thou has been with the monkey people, the great apes, the people without a law, the eaters of everything? That is great shame. When Baloo hurt my head, said Mowgli, he was still on his back. I went away, and the great apes came down from the trees, and had pity on me. No one else cared. He snuffled a little. The pity of the monkey people, Baloo snorted, the stillness of the mountain stream, the cool of the summer sun, and then, man-cub, and then, and then they gave me nuts and pleasant thanks to eat, and they carried me in their arms up to the top of the trees, and said I was their blood brother, except that I had no tail, and should be their leader some day. They have no leader, said Bagheera. They lie. They have always lied. They were very kind, and bade me come again. Why have I never been taken among the monkey people? They stand on their feet as I do. They do not hit me with their hard paws. They play all day. Let me get up, bad Baloo. Let me up. I will play with them again. Listen, man-cub, said the bear, and his voice rumbled like thunder on a hot night. I have taught thee all the laws of the jungle for all the peoples of the jungle, except the monkey people who live in the trees. They have no law. They are outcasts. They have no speech of their own, but use the stolen words which they overhear when they listen and peep and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not our way. They are without leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and pretend that there are great people about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter, and all is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink. We do not go where the monkeys go. We do not hunt where they hunt.  Has thou ever heard me speak of the band or log till to-day? No, said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still now Baloo had finished. The jungle people put them out of their mouths and out of their minds. They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless, and they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the jungle people, but we do not notice them even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads. He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs spattered down through the branches, and they could hear coffings and howlings and angry jumpings high up in the air among the thin branches. The monkey people are forbidden, said Baloo, forbidden to the jungle people, remember. Forbidden, said Bagheera, but I still think Baloo should have warned thee against them. I? I? How was I to guess he would play with such dirt, the monkey people, far. A fresh shower came down on their heads, and the two trotted away, taking Mowgli with them. What Baloo had to say about the monkeys was perfectly true. They belonged to the treetops, and as beasts very seldom look up, there was no occasion for the monkeys and the jungle people to cross each other's path. But whenever they found a sick wolf for a wounded tiger or bear, the monkeys would torment him and throw sticks and nuts at any beast for fun and in the hope of being noticed. Then they would howl and shriek senseless songs and invite the jungle people to climb up their trees and fight them, or they would start furious battles over nothing among themselves and leave the dead monkeys where the jungle people could see them. They were always just going to have a leader and laws and customs of their own, but they never did, because their memories would not hold over from day to day, and so they compromised things by making up a saying. What bendalore think now the jungle will think later, and that comforted them a great deal. None of the beasts could reach them, but on the other hand none of the beasts would notice them, and that was why they were so pleased when Mowgli came to play with them and they heard how angry Balu was. They never meant to do any more. The bandalog never meant anything at all, but one of them invented what seemed to him a brilliant idea, and he told all the others that Mowgli would be a useful person to keep in the tribe, because he could weave sticks together for protection from the wind, so if they caught him they could make him teach them. Of course, Mowgli as a woodcutter's child inherited all sorts of instincts and used to make little huts of fallen branches without thinking how he came to do it. The monkey people watching in the trees considered his play most wonderful. This time they said they were really going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the jungle, so wise that everyone else would notice and envy them. Therefore they followed Balu and Bagheera and Mowgli through the jungle very quietly till it was time for the midday nap, and Mowgli, who was very much ashamed of himself, slept between the panther and the bear, resolving to have no more to do with the monkey people. The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on his legs and arms, hard, strong little hands, and then a swash of branches in his face, and then he was staring down through the swaying boughs as Balu woke the jungle with his deep cries, and Bagheera bounded up the trunk with every tooth bared. The bander log howled with triumph and scuffled away to the upper branches, where Bagheera dared not follow, shouting, he has noticed us, Bagheera has noticed us, all the jungle people admire us for our skill and our cunning. Then they began their flight, and the flight of the monkey people through treeland is one of the things nobody can describe. They have their regular roads and crossroads, up hills and down hills, all laid out from fifty to seventy or a hundred feet above the ground, and by these they can travel even at night if necessary. Two of the strongest monkeys caught Mowgli under the arms and swung off with him through the treetops, twenty feet at a bound. Had they been alone, they could have gone twice as fast, but the boy's weight held him back. Sick and giddy as Mowgli was, he could not help enjoying the wild rush, though the glimpses of earth far down below frightened him, and the terrible check and jerk at the end of the swaying over nothing but empty air brought his heart between his teeth. His escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the thinnest topmost branches crackle and bend under them, and then with a cough and a whoop would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and bring up hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the next tree. Sometimes he could see from miles and miles across the still green jungle, as a man on the top of a mast can see from miles across the sea, and then the branches and leaves would lash him across the face, and he and his two guards would be almost down to earth again. So, bounding and crashing and whooping and yelling, the whole tribe of bandar logs swept along the tree roads with Mowgli their prisoner. For a time he was afraid of being dropped. Then he grew angry, but knew better than to struggle, and then he began to think. The first thing was to send back word to Balu and Bagheera, for at the pace the monkeys were going, he knew his friends would be left for behind. It was useless to look down, for he could only see the top sides of the branches, so he stared upward and saw, far away in the blue, Ron the kite balancing and wheeling as he kept watch over the jungle, waiting for things to die. Ron saw that the monkeys were carrying something, and dropped a few hundred yards to find out whether their load was good to eat. He whistled with surprise, when he saw Mowgli being dragged up to a treetop, and heard him give the kite call for, We be of one blood, thou and I. The waves of the branches closed over the boy, but Ron balanced away to the next tree, and time to see the little brown face come up again. Mark my trail! Mowgli shouted, tell Balu of the Sione Pack, and Bagheera of the Council Rock. In whose name, brother? Ron had never seen Mowgli before, though of course he had heard of him. Mowgli the frog, man cub they call me, mark my trail. The last words were shrieked, as he was being swung through the air, but Ron nodded, and rose up till he looked no bigger than a speck of dust, and there he hung, watching with his telescope eyes the swaying of the treetops as Mowgli's escort whirled along. They never go far, he said with the chuckle. They never do what they set out to do, always pecking at new things or the bandar log. This time, if I have any eyesight, they have pecked down trouble for themselves, for Balu is no fledgling, and Bagheera can, as I know, kill more than goats. So he rocked his wings, his feet gathered up under him, and waited. Meantime, Balu and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief. Bagheera climbed as he had never climbed before, but the thin branches broke beneath his weight, and he slipped down his claws full of bark. Why didst thou not warn the man cub, he roared to poor Balu, who had set off at a clumsy trot in the hope of overtaking the monkeys. What was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not warn him? Haste, oh haste, we, we may catch them yet, Balu panted. At that speed it would not tire a wounded cow, teacher of the locked cub beater. A mile of that rolling to and fro would burst the open. Sit still and think, make a plan. This is no time for chasing. They may drop him if we follow too close. Arula, oh, they may have dropped him already, being tired of carrying him. Who can trust the band or log?  Oh, Mowgli, Mowgli, why did I not warn thee against the monkey-folk, instead of breaking thy head? Now, perhaps, I may have knocked the day's lesson out of his mind, and he will be alone in the jungle without the master-words. Balu clasped his paws over his ears and rolled to and fro moaning. At least he gave me all the words correctly a little time ago, said Bagheera impatiently. Balu, thou hast neither memory nor respect. What would the jungle think if I, the black panther, curled myself up like icky the porcupine and howled? What do I care what the jungle thinks? He may be dead by now. Unless and until they drop him from the branches in sport, or kill him out of idleness, I have no fear for the man-cub. He is wise and well-taught, and above all he has the eyes that make the jungle people afraid. But, and it is a great evil, he is in the power of a band or log, and they, because they live in trees, have no fear of any of our people. Bagheera licked one forepaw thoughtfully.  It is true what Hathi, the wild elephant, says, to each his own fear, and they, the band or log, fear Ka, the rock snake. He can climb as well as they can. He steals the young monkeys in the night. The whisper of his name makes their wicked tales cold. Let us go to Ka. What will he do for us? He is not of our tribe of being footless and with most evil eyes, said Bagheera. He is very old and very cunning, above all. He is always hungry, said Balu hopefully. Promise him many goats. He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be asleep now, and even were he awake, what if he would rather kill his own goats? Bagheera, who did not know much about Ka, was naturally suspicious. Then, in that case, thou and I together, old hunter, must make him see reason. Here Balu rubbed his faded brown shoulder against the panther, and they went off to look for Ka, the rock python. They found him stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun, admiring his beautiful new coat, for he had been in retirement for the last ten days changing his skin, and now he was very splendid, darting his big blunt-nosed head along the ground and twisting the thirty feet of his body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking his lips as he thought of his dinner to come. He is not eaten, said Balu with a grunt of relief, as soon as he saw the beautifully mottled brown and yellow jacket. Be careful, Bagheera, he is always a little blind after he has changed his skin, and very quick to strike. Ka was not a poison snake, in fact he rather despised the poison snakes as cowards, but his strength lay in his hug, and when he had once slapped his huge carls round any body there was no more to be said. Good hunting! cried Balu, sitting up on his hunches. Like all snakes of his breed, Ka was rather deaf, and did not hear the call at first. Then he curled up ready for any accident, his head lowered. Good hunting for us all! he answered. Oh-ho, Balu! What dost thou do here? Good hunting, Bagheera! One of us at least needs food. Is there any news of game afoot, a dough now, or even a young buck? I am as empty as a dried well. We are hunting, said Balu carelessly. He knew that you must not hurry, Ka. He is too big. Give me permission to come with you, said Ka. A blow more or less is nothing to thee, Bagheera or Balu. But I, I have to wait and wait for days in a wood-path, and climb half a night on the mere chance of a young ape. The branches are not what they were when I was young. Rotten twigs and dry bowels are they all. Maybe thy great weight has something to do with the matter, said Balu. I am a fair length, a fairer length, said Ka with a little pride, but for all that it is the fault of this new-grown timber. I came very near to falling on my last hunt, very near indeed, and the noise of my slipping, for my tail was not tight-wrapped around the tree, waked the bandar-log, and they call me most evil names. Footless, yellow earthworm, said Bagheera under his whiskers, as though he were trying to remember something. They call me that, said Ka. Something of that kind it was that they shouted to us last moon, but we never noticed them. They will say anything, even that thou hast lost all thy teeth, and will not face anything bigger than a kid, because they are indeed shameless these bandar-log, because thou art afraid of the he-goats' horns. Bagheera went on sweetly. Now a snake, especially a wary old python like Ka, very seldom shows that he is angry, but Balu and Bagheera could see the big swallowing muscles on either side of Ka's throat, ripple and bulge. The bandar-log have shifted their grounds, he said quietly. When I came up into the sun to-day, I heard them whooping among the tree-tops. It—it is the bandar-log that we follow now, said Balu, but the words stuck in his throat, for that was the first time in his memory that one of the jungle people had owned to being interested in the doings of the monkeys. Be undoubted, it is no small thing that takes two such hunters, leaders in their own jungle, I am certain, on the trail of the bandar-log, Ka replied courteously as he swelled with curiosity. Indeed, Balu began, I am no more than the old and sometimes very foolish teacher of the law to the Sione wolf-cubs, and Bagheera here is Bagheera, said the Black Panther, and his jaws shut with a snap, for he did not believe in being humble. The trouble is this, Ka, those nut-stealers and pickers of palm leaves have stolen away our man-cub of whom thou has perhaps heard. I heard some news from Iggy, his quills make him presumptuous, of a man-thing that was entered into a wolf-pack, but I did not believe, Iggy is full of stories have heard and very badly told. But it is true, he is such a man-cub as never was, said Balu, the best and wisest and boldest of man-cubs, my own pupil, who shall make the name of Balu famous through all the jungles, and besides I, we, love him, Ka. Said Ka, weaving his head to and fro. I also have known what love is, there are tales I could tell that, that need a clear night when we are all well fed to praise properly, said Bagheera quickly, our man-cub is in the hands of the Bandar log now, and we know that of all the jungle people, they fear Ka alone.  Worm, worm, earth-worm, said Bagheera, as well as other things which I cannot now say for shame. We must remind them to speak well of their master, asp, we must help their wondering memories, now wither went they with the cub. The jungle alone knows, toward the sun said I believe, said Balu, we have thought that thou wouldst know, Ka. I? How? I take them when they come in my way, but I do not hunt the bander-logs or frogs, or greens scum on a water-hole for that matter. Hop, hop, hop, hop, hello, hello, hello, look up, Balu, the Siony Wolfpack. Balu looked up to see where the voice came from, and there was Ron the Kite, sweeping down with the sun shining on the upturned flanges of his wings. It was near Ron's bedtime, but he had ranged all over the jungle, looking for the bear, and had missed him in the thick foliage. What is it? said Balu. I have seen Mowgli among the bander-log. He made me tell you, I watched. The bander-log have taken him beyond the river to the mucky city, to the cold lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark time. That is my message. Good hunting, all you below. Full gorge and a deep sleep to you, Ron, cried Bakheera. I will remember thee in my next kill, and put aside the head for thee alone, o best of kites. It is nothing, it is nothing. The boy held the master-word. I could have done no less. And Ron circled up again to his roost. He has not forgotten to use his tongue, said Balu, with the chuckle of pride, to think of one so young, remembering the master-word for the birds too, while he was being pulled across trees. It was most firmly driven into him, said Bakheera, but I am proud of him, and now we must go to the cold lairs. They all knew where that place was, but few of the jungle-people ever went there, because what they called the cold lairs was an old, deserted city, lost and buried in the jungle, and beasts seldom use a place that men have once used. The wild boar will, but the hunting tribes do not. Besides, the monkeys lived there as much as they could be said to live anywhere, and no self-respecting animal would come with an eye-shot of it, except in times of drought, when the half-ruined tanks and reservoirs held a little water. It is a half-night's journey at full speed, said Bakheera, and Balu looked very serious. I will go as fast as I can, he said anxiously. We dare not wait for thee, follow Balu. We must go on the quick foot, Ka and I. Feet or no feet, I can keep abreast of all thy fore, said Ka shortly. Balu made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting, and so they left him to come on later, while Bakheera hurried forward at the quick panther canter. Ka said nothing, but strive as Bakheera might. The huge rock python held level with him. When they came to a hill-stream, Bakheera gained, because he bounded across while Ka swam, his head and two feet of his neck clearing the water, but on level ground, Ka made up the distance. By the broken lock that freed me, said Bakheera when twilight had fallen, thou art no slow goer. I am hungry, said Ka, besides they call me speckled frog, worm, earthworm, and yellow to boot. All one, let us go on, and Ka seemed to pour himself along the ground, finding the shortest road with his steady eyes, and keeping to it. End of Part 1 of Cause Hunting Chapter 4 of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Cause Hunting Part 2 In the co-layers, the monkey people were not thinking of Mowgli's friends at all. They had brought the boy to the lost city, and were very much pleased with themselves for the time. Mowgli had never seen an Indian city before, and though this was almost a heap of ruins, it seemed very wonderful and splendid. Some king had built it long ago on a little hill. You could still trace the stone causeways that led up to the ruined gates, where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted hinges. Trees had grown into and out of the walls. The battlements were tumbled down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out of the windows of the towers on the walls in bushy, hanging clumps. A great, roofless palace round the hill, and the marble of the courtyards and the fountains was split and stained with red and green, and the very cobblestones in the courtyard, where the king's elephants used to live, had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees. From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that made up the city, looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness. The shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where four roads met, the pits and dimples at street corners where the public wells once stood, and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides. The monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise the jungle people because they lived in the forest, and yet they never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in circles on the hall of the king's council chamber, and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men, or they would run in and out of the roofless houses and collect pieces of plaster and old bricks in a corner, and forget where they had hidden them, and fight and cry in scuffling crowds, and then break off to play up and down the terraces of the king's garden where they would shake the rose-trees and the oranges in sport to see the fruit and flowers fall. They explored all the passages and dark tunnels in the palace and the hundreds of little dark rooms, but they never remembered what they had seen and what they had not, and so drifted about in ones and twos or crowds telling each other that they were doing as men did. They drank at the tanks and made the water all muddy, and then they fought over it, and then they would all rush together in mobs and shout, There is no one in the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and gentle as the band or log. Then all would begin again till they grew tired of the city, and went back to the treetops, hoping the jungle people would notice them. Mowgli, who had been trained under the law of the jungle, did not like or understand this kind of life. The monkeys dragged him into the coal lair as late in the afternoon, and instead of going to sleep, as Mowgli would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and danced about and sang their foolish songs. One of the monkeys made a speech and told his companions that Mowgli's capture marked a new thing in the history of the band or log, for Mowgli was going to show them how to weave sticks and canes together as a protection against rain and cold. Mowgli picked up some creepers and began to work them in and out, and the monkeys tried to imitate, but in a very few minutes they lost interest, and began to pull their friends' tails or jump up and down on all fours coughing. I wish to eat, said Mowgli. I am a stranger in this part of the jungle. Bring me food or give me leave to hunt here. Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild pappas. But they fell to fighting on the road, and it was too much trouble to go back with what was left of the fruit. Mowgli was soaring angry as well as hungry, and he roamed through the empty city, giving the strangers hunting call from time to time, but no one answered him, and Mowgli felt that he had reached a very bad place indeed. All that Baloo has said about the Bandar log is true, he thought to himself.  So if I am starved or killed here, it will be all my own fault. But I must try to return to my own jungle. Baloo will surely beat me, but that is better than chasing silly rose leaves with the Bandar log. No sooner had he walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him back, telling him that he did not know how happy he was, and pinching him to make him grateful. He set his teeth and said nothing, but went with the shouting monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone reservoirs that were half full of rainwater.  The domed roof had fallen in and blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the Queen's used to enter, but the walls were made of screens of marble tracery, beautiful milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill, it shone through the open work, casting shadows on the ground like black velvet embroidery. Sore, sleepy and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not help laughing when the Bandar log began, twenty at a time, to tell him how great and wise and strong and gentle they were, and how foolish he was to wish to leave them. We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle. We all say so, and so it must be true, they shouted. Now as you are a new listener and can carry our words back to the jungle people, so that they may notice us in future, we will tell you all about our most excellent selves. Mowgli made no objection, and the monkeys gathered by hundreds and hundreds on the terrace to listen to their own speakers, singing the praises of the Bandar log, and whenever a speaker stopped for one to breath, they would all shout together, this is true, we all say so. Mowgli nodded and blanked and said, yes, when they asked him a question, and his head spun with the noise. Tobaki the Jackal must have bitten all these people, he said to himself, and now they have madness. Certainly this is Dawani the Madness. Do they never go to sleep? Now there is a cloud coming to cover that moon. If it were only a big enough cloud, I might try to run away in the darkness, but I am tired. That same cloud was being watched by two good friends in the ruined ditch below the city wall. Thor Bogheera and Ka, knowing well how dangerous the monkey people were in large numbers, did not wish to run any risks. The monkeys never fight unless they are a hundred to one, and few in the jungle care for those odds. I will go to the west wall, Ka whispered, and come down swiftly with the slope of the ground in my favour. They will not throw themselves upon my back in their hundreds, but— I know it, said Bogheera. Would that baloo were here, but we must do what we can. When that cloud covers the moon, I shall go to the terrace. They hold some sort of council there over the boy. Good hunting! said Ka grimly, and glided away to the west wall. That happened to be the least ruined of any, and the big snake was delayed a while before he could find a way up the stones. The cloud hid the moon, and as Mowgli wondered what would come next, he heard Bogheera's light feet on the terrace. The black panther had raced up the slope almost without a sound, and was striking—he knew better than always time in biting—right then left among the monkeys, who were seated ground Mowgli in circles fifty and sixty deep. There was a howl of fright and rage, and then, as Bogheera tripped on the rolling kicking bodies beneath him, a monkey shouted, There was only one here. Kill him! Kill! A scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing, and pulling, closed over Bogheera, while five or six late hold of Mowgli dragged him up the wall of the summer house, and pushed him through the hold of the broken dome. A man-trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as baloo had taught him to fall, and landed on his feet. Stay there! shouted the monkeys, Till we have killed thy friends, and later we will play with thee, if the poisoned people leave thee alive. We be of one blood, ye and I, said Mowgli quickly giving the snake's call. He could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all round him, and gave the call a second time to make sure. Even so, down hoods all, said a half dozen low voices, every ruin in India becomes sooner or later a dwelling place of snakes, and the old summer house was alive with cobras. Stand still, little brother, for thy feet may do us harm. Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the open work and listening to the furious den of the fight round the black panther, the yells and chatterings and scufflings, and Bagheera's deep horse cough, as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his enemies. For the first time since he was born, Bagheera was fighting for his life. Baloo must be at hand, Bagheera would not have come alone, Mowgli thought, and then he called aloud. To the tank, Bagheera, roll to the water tanks, roll and plunge, get to the water. Bagheera heard, and the cry that told him Mowgli was safe gave him new courage. He worked his way desperately inch by inch, straight for the reservoirs, halting in silence. Then, from the ruined wall nearest the jungle, rose up the rumbling washout of Baloo. The old bear had done his best, but he could not come before. Bagheera, he shouted, I am here, I climb, I haste, the stone slip under my feet, wait my coming, almost infamous banderlog. He panted up the terrace, only to disappear to the head in a wave of monkeys, but he threw himself squarely on his haunches and, spreading out his forepaws, hugged as many as he could hold, and then began to hit with a regular bat, bat, bat, like the flipping strokes of a paddle wheel. A crash and a splash told Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the tank where the monkeys could not follow. The panther lay gasping for breath, his head just out of the water, while the monkeys stood three deep on the red steps, dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring upon him from all sides if he came out to help Baloo. It was then that Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin, and in despair gave the snakes call for protection. We be of one blood, ye and I, for he believed that Ka had turned tail at the last minute. Even Baloo have smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he heard the black panther asking for help. Ka had only just worked his way over the west wall, landing with a wrench that dislodged a coping stone into the ditch. He had no intention of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoyled himself once or twice to be sure that every foot of his long body was in working order. All that while the fight with Baloo went on, and the monkeys yelled in the tank round Bagheera, and mang the bat, flying to and fro, carried the news of the great battle over the jungle, till even Hathi the wild elephant trumpeted, and far away scattered bands of the monkey folk woke and came leaping along the tree-roads to help their comrades in the cold lairs, and the noise of the fight roused all the daybirds from miles around. Then Ka came straight, quickly and anxious to kill. The fighting strength of a python is in the driving blow of his head, backed by all the strength and weight of his body. If you can imagine a lance or a battering ram, or a hammer weighing nearly half a ton, driven by a cool, quiet mind, living in the middle of it, you can roughly imagine what Ka was like when he fought. A python four or five feet long can knock a man down if he hits him fairly in the chest, and Ka was thirty feet long, as you know. His first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd round Baloo. It was sent home with shut mouth in silence, and there was no need of a second. The monkey scattered with cries of, Ka! It is Ka! Run, run! Generations of monkeys have been scared into good behavior by the stories their elders told him of Ka, the night thief, who could slip along the branches as quietly as moss grows, and steal away the strongest monkey that ever lived, of old Ka, who could make himself look so like a dead branch or a rotten stump that the wisest were deceived till the branch caught them. Ka was everything that the monkeys feared in the jungle, for none of them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look him in the face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug. And so they ran, stammering with terror to the walls and the roofs of the houses, and Baloo drew a deep breath of relief. His fur was much thicker than Bagheera's, but he had suffered sorely in the fight. Then Ka opened his mouth for the first time, and spoke one long, hissing word, and the far away monkeys, hurrying to the defense of the co-layers, stayed where they were, cowering, till the loaded branches bent and crackled under them. The monkeys on the walls and the empty houses stopped their cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city, Mowgli heard Bagheera shaking his wet sides as he came from the tank. Then the clamor broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls, they clung around the necks of the big stone idols, and shrieked as they skipped along the battlements, while Mowgli, dancing in the summer house, put his eye to the screen work and hooted owl fashion between his front teeth to show his derision and contempt. Get the man-cub out of that trap. I can do no more. Bagheera gasped. Let us take the man-cub and go. They may attack again. They will not move till I order them. Stay you ssssso, ca hissed, and the city was silent once more. I could not come before, brother, but I think I heard the call. This was too Bagheera. I may have cried out in the battle. Bagheera answered, Balu, are thou hurt? I am not sure they did not pull me into a hundred little bearlings, said Balu gravely, shaking one leg after the other. Oh, I am sore. Ca, we owe thee, I think our lives, Bagheera and I. No matter. Where is the man-ling? Here, in the trap, I cannot climb out, cried Mowgli. The curve of the broken dome was above his head. Take him away. He dances like Mao the peacock. He will crush our young, said the cobras inside. Ha! said Ca with the chuckle. He has friends everywhere this man-ling. Stand back, man-ling, and hide, you old poison people. I break down the wall. Ca looked carefully till he found a discolored crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and then, lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power smashing blows nose first. The screen work broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening and flung himself between Baloo and Bagheera and arm around each big neck. Art thou hurt? said Baloo, hucking him softly. I am sore, hungry, and not a little bruised. But, oh, they have handled ye grievously, my brothers. Ye bleed. Others also, said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the monkey dead on the terrace and round the tank. It is nothing, it is nothing, if thou art safe. Oh, my pride of all little frogs, whimpered Baloo. Of that we shall judge later, said Bagheera in a dry voice, that Mowgli did not at all like. But here is Ca to whom we owe the battle and thou o'est thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli. Mowgli turned and saw the great Python's head swaying a foot above his own. So this is the mandling, said Ca. Very soft is his skin, and he is not unlike the bandar log. Have a care, mandling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat. We be one blood, thou and I, Mowgli answered, I take my life from thee to-night.  All thanks, little brother, said Ca, though his eyes twinkled, and what may so bold a hunter kill, I ask that I may follow when next he goes abroad. I kill nothing, I am too little, but I drive goats towards such as can use them, when thou art empty come to me and see if I speak the truth. I have some skill in these, he held out his hands, and if ever thou art in a trap, I may pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Bagheera and to Baloo here, good hunting to ye all, my masters. Well said, growled Baloo, for Mowgli had returned thanks very prettily. The Python dropped his head lightly for a minute on Mowgli's shoulder. Hey, brave heart, and a courteous tongue, said he, they shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling, but now go hence quickly with thy friends, go and sleep for the moon sets, and what follows it is not well that thou shouldst see. The moon was sinking behind the hills, and the lines of trembling monkeys huddled together on the walls and battlements looked like ragged shaggy fringes of things. Baloo went down to the tank for a drink, and Bagheera began to put his fur in order, as Ka glided out into the center of the terrace, and brought his jaws together with their ringing snap that drew all the monkeys' eyes upon him. The moon sets, he said. Is there yet light enough to see? From the walls came a moan like the wind in the treetops. We see, oh Ka, good. Now begins the dance, the dance of the hunger of Ka. Sit still, and watch. He turned twice or thrice in a big circle, weaving his head from right to left. Then he began making loops and figures of eight with his body, and soft oozy triangles that melted into squares and five-sided figures, and coiled mounds never resting, never hurrying, and never stopping his low humming song. It grew darker and darker till at last the dragging, shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle of the scales. Baloo and Bagheera stood still astone, growling in their throats, their neck hair bristling, and mogley watched and wondered. Banderlog, said the voice of Ka at last, can ye stir foot our hand without my order? Speak. Without thy order we cannot stir hand or foot, oh Ka. Good. Come all one pace nearer to me. The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and Bagheera took one stiff step forward with them. Nearer! hissed Ka, and they all moved again. Mogley laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the two great beasts started as though they had been waked from a dream. Keep thy hand on my shoulder, Bagheera whispered, keep it there, or I must go back. Must go back to Ka. Ha! It is only old Ka making circles on the dust, said Mogley, let us go. And the three slipped off through a gap in the walls to the jungle. Said Baloo when he stood under the still trees again. Nevermore will I make an ally of Ka, and he shook himself all over. He knows more than we, said Bagheera trembling. In a little time had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat. Many will walk by that road before the moon rises again, said Baloo. He will have good hunting after his own fashion. But what was the meaning of it all, said Mogley, who did not know anything of a python's power of fascination? I saw no more than a big snake making fully circles till the dark came, and his nose was all sore. Mogley, said Bagheera angrily, his nose was sore on thy account, as my ears and sides and paws and Baloo's neck and shoulders are bitten on thy account. Neither Baloo nor Bagheera will be able to hunt with pleasure for many days. It is nothing, said Baloo, we have the man-cob again.  All this, man-cob, came of thy playing with the bandar-log. True, it is true, said Mogley sorrowfully. I am an evil man-cob, and my stomach is sad in me. What says the law of the jungle, Baloo? Baloo did not wish to bring Mogley into any more trouble, but he could not tamper with the law, so he mumbled, sorrow never stays punishment. But remember, Bagheera, he is very little. I will remember, but he has done mischief, and blows must be dealt now. Mogley has thought anything to say? Nothing, I did wrong. Baloo and thou are wounded, it is just. Bagheera gave him half a dozen love-taps from a panther's point of view. They would hardly have weighed one of his own cubs, but for a seven-year-old boy they amounted to as severe a beating as you could wish to avoid. When it was all over, Mogley sneezed, and picked himself up without a word.  One of the beauties of jungle law is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging afterward. Mogley laid his head down on Bagheera's back, and slept so deeply that he never waked when he was put down in the home cave. Road Song of the Bandar Log Here we go in a flung festoon, halfway up to the jealous moon. Don't you envy our pranceful bands? Don't you wish you had extra hands? Wouldn't you like if your tails were so curved in the shape of a cupid's bow? Now you're angry, but never mind. Brother, thy tail hangs down behind. Here we sit in a branchy row, thinking of beautiful things we know, dreaming of deeds that we meant to do, all complete, in a minute or two, something noble and wise and good, done by merely wishing we could. We've forgotten, but never mind. Brother, thy tail hangs down behind. All the talk we ever have heard, uttered by bat or beast or bird, hide or fin or scale or feather, jabber it quickly and all together, excellent, wonderful, once again. Now we are talking just like men. Let's pretend we are, never mind. Brother, thy tail hangs down behind. This is the way of the monkey kind. Then join our leaping lines that scum fish through the pines, that rocket by wear, light and high, the wild grape swings, by the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make. Be sure, be sure, we're going to do some splendid things. Tiger, tiger, part one. What of the hunting, hunter-bold? Brother, the watch was long and cold. What of the quarry ye went to kill? Brother, he crops in the jungle still. Where is the power that made your pride? Brother, it ebbs from my flank inside. Where is the haste that ye hurry by? Brother, I go to my lair to die. Now we must go back to the first tail. When Mowgli left the wolves' cave after the fight with the pack at the council rock, he went down to the plowed lands where the villagers lived, but he would not stop there because it was too near to the jungle, and he knew that he had made at least one bad enemy at the council, so he hurried on, keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley and followed it at a steady jog trot for nearly twenty miles, till he came to a country that he did not know. The valley opened out into a great plain, dotted over with rocks and cut up by ravines. At one end stood a little village, and at the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the grazing grounds and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a hoe. All over the plain cattle and buffaloes were grazing, and when the little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli they shouted and ran away, and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian village barked. Mowgli walked on, for he was feeling hungry, and when he came to the village gate he saw the big thorn bush that was drawn up before the gate at twilight pushed to one side. He said, for he had come across more than one such barrier in his night rambles after things to eat, so men are afraid of the people of the jungle here also. He sat down by the gate, and when a man came out he stood up, opened his mouth, and pointed down it to show that he wanted food. The man stared and ran back up the one street of the village shouting for the priest, who was a big fat man dressed in white, with a red and yellow mark on his forehead. The priest came to the gate, and with him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked and shouted and pointed at Mowgli. They have no manners these men folk, said Mowgli to himself. Only the gray ape would behave as they do, so he threw back his long hair and frowned at the crowd. What is there to be afraid of? said the priest. Look at the marks on his arms and legs. They are the bites of wolves. He has but a wolf-child run away from the jungle. Of course, in playing together the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder than they intended, and there were white scars all over his arms and legs, but he would have been the last person in the world to call these bites, for he knew what real biting meant. Ar, ar, said two or three women together. To be bitten by wolves, poor child. He is a handsome boy. He has eyes like red fire. By my honor, Missua, he is not unlike thy boy that was taken by the tiger. Let me look, said a woman with heavy copper rings on her wrists and ankles, and she peered at Mowgli under the palm of her hand. Indeed he is not. He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy. The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Missua was wife to the richest villager in the place. So he looked up at the sky for a minute and said solemnly, What the jungle has taken, the jungle has restored. Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget not to honor the priest who sees so far into the lives of men. By the bull that bought me, said Mowgli to himself, but all this talking is like another looking over by the pack. Well, if I am a man, a man I must become. The crowd ported, as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking-pots, an image of a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real-looking glass such as they sell at the county fairs. She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid her hand on his head and looked into his eyes, for she thought, perhaps, that he might be her real son come back from the jungle where the tiger had taken him. So she said, Nathu, O Nathu! Mowgli did not show that he knew the name. Doth thou not remember the day when I gave thee thy new shoes? She touched his foot, and it was almost as hard as horn. No, she said sorrowfully, those feet have never worn shoes, but thou art very like mine, Nathu, and thou shalt be my son. Mowgli was uneasy because he had never been under a roof before, but as he looked at the thatch he saw that he could tear it out any time if he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings. What is the good of a man, he said to himself at last, if he does not understand man's talk?  I must speak their talk. It was not for fun that he had learned, while he was with the wolves, to imitate the challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little wild pig. So as soon as Masua pronounced a word, Mowgli would imitate it almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the names of many things in the hut. There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under anything that looked so like a panther trap as that hut, and when they shut the door he went through the window. Give him his will, said Masua's husband. Remember, he can never till now have slept on a bed. If he is indeed sent in the place of our son he will not run away. So Mowgli stretched himself in some long, clean grass at the edge of the field. But before he had closed his eyes, a soft gray nose poked him under the chin. Pugh, said gray brother, he was the eldest of mother wolf's cubs. This is a poor reward for following the twenty miles, thou smellest of wood smoke and cattle, all together like a man already. Wake, little brother, I bring news. Are all well in the jungle? said Mowgli, hugging him. All except the wolves that were burned with the red flower. Now listen, Sher Khan has gone away to hunt far off till his coat grows again, for he is badly singed. When he returns he swears that he will lay thy bones in the Wangonga. There are two words to that. I also have made a little promise, but news is always good. I am tired to-tonight, very tired with new things, gray brother. But bring me the news always. Thou wilt not forget that thou art a wolf? Men will not make thee forget, said gray brother anxiously. Never! I will always remember that I love thee and all in our cave, but also I will always remember that I have been cast out of the pack, and that thou mayest be cast out of another pack.  When I come down here again, I will wait for thee and the bamboos at the edge of the grazing ground. For three months after that night Mowgli hardly ever left the village gate. He was so busy learning the ways and customs of men. First he had to wear a cloth round him which annoyed him horribly, and then he had to learn about money which he did not in the least understand, and about plowing of which he did not see the use. Then the little children in the village made him very angry. Luckily the law of the jungle had taught him to keep his temper, for when the jungle life and food depended on keeping your temper, and when they made fun of him because he would not play games or fly kites, or because he mispronounced some word, only the knowledge that it was unsportsmanlike to kill little naked cubs kept him from picking them up and breaking them in two. He did not know his own strength in the least. In the jungle he knew he was weak compared with the beasts, but in the village people said that he was as strong as a bull, and Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the difference that caste makes between man and man. When the potter's donkey slipped in the clay pit Mowgli hauled it out by the tail, and helped to stack the pots for their journey to the market at Kanhawara. That was very shocking too, for the potter is a low caste man, and his donkey is worse. When the priest scolded him, Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey too, and the priest told Musua's husband that Mowgli had better be set to work as soon as possible, and the village headman told Mowgli that he would have to go out with the buffaloes next day and herd them while they grazed. No one was more pleased than Mowgli, and that night, because he had been appointed a servant of the village as it were, he went off to a circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great fig tree. It was the village club, and the headman, and the watchman, and the barber, who knew all the gossip of the village, and old Buldeo, the village hunter, who had a tower musket, met and smoked. The monkeys sat and talked in the upper branches, and there was a hole under the platform, or a cobra lived, and he had his little platter of milk every night, because he was sacred. And the old men sat around the tree and talked and pulled at the big hookahs, the water-pipes, till far into the night. They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts, and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of the ways of the beasts in the jungle, till the eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bolted out of their heads. Most of the tales were about animals, for the jungle was always at their door. The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their crops, and now and again the tiger carried off a man at twilight within sight of the village gates. Mowgli, who naturally knew something about what they were talking of, had to cover his face not to show that he was laughing, while Buldeo, the tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one wonderful story to another, and Mowgli's shoulders shook. Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried away Massousa's son was a ghost tiger, and his body was inhabited by the ghost of a wicked old moneylender who had died some years ago. And I know that this is true, he said, because Porandas always limped from the blow that he got in the riot when his account books were burned, and the tiger that I speak of he limps too, for the tracks of his pads are unequal. True, true, that must be the truth, said the greybeards nodding together. Are all these tales such cobwebs in moontock? said Mowgli, that tiger limps because he was born lame, as everyone knows, to talk of the soul of a moneylender and a beast that never had the courage of a jackal is child's talk. Buldeo was speechless with surprise for a moment, and the headman stared. Ho, ho, it is the jungle brat, is it? said Buldeo. If thou art so wise, better bring his hide to Kanhawara, for the government has set a hundred rupees on his life. Better still, talk not when thy elders speak. Mowgli rose to go. All the evening I have laid here listening, he called back over his shoulder, and except once or twice, Buldeo has not said one word of truth concerning the jungle which is at his very doors. How then shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins which he says he has seen? It is full time that boy went to herding, said the headman, while Buldeo puffed and snorted at Mowgli's impertinence. The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning and bring them back at night. The very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that hardly come up to their noses. So long as the boys keep with the herds, they are safe, for not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle, but if they struggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards, they are sometimes carried off. Mowgli went through the village street in the dawn, sitting on the back of Rama the great herd bull. The slady blue buffaloes with their long backwards sweeping horns and savage eyes rose out of their buyers one by one and followed him, and Mowgli made it very clear to the children with him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes with a long polished bamboo and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze the cattle by themselves while he went on with the buffaloes and to be very careful not to stray away from the herd. An Indian grazing ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear. The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing and basking in the warm mud for hours. Mowgli drove them on to the edge of the plain, where the Wanganga came out of the jungle. Then he dropped from Rama's neck, trotted off to a bamboo clump, and found Gray Brother. Ah, said Gray Brother, I have waited here very many days. What is the meaning of this cattle-herding work? It is an order, said Mowgli. I am a village herd for a while. What news of Sher Khan? He has come back to this country and has waited here a long time for thee. Now he has gone off again, for the game is scarce.  Very good, said Mowgli. So long as he is away, do thou or one of the four brothers sit on that rock so that I can see thee as I come out of the village. When he comes back, wait for me in the ravine by the de-hoc tree in the center of the plain. We need not walk into Sher Khan's mouth. Then Mowgli picked out a shady place and lay down and slept while the buffaloes grazed round him. Herding in India is one of the laziest things in the world. The cattle move and crunch and lie down and move on again, and they do not even lo. They only grunt, and the buffaloes very seldom say anything, but get down into the muddy pools, one after another, and work their way into the mud till only their noses and staring china-blue eyes show above the surface, and then they lie like logs. The sun makes the rocks dance in the heat, and the herd children herd one kite never any more, whistling almost out of sight overhead, and they know that if they died, or a cow died, that kite would sweep down, and the next kite miles away would see him drop and follow, and the next and the next, and almost before they were dead, there would be a score of hungry kites come out of nowhere. Then they sleep and wake and sleep again, and weave little baskets of dried grass and put grasshoppers in them, or catch two preying mantises and make them fight, or string a necklace of red and black jungle nuts, or watch a lizard basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the wallows. Then they sing long, long songs with odd native quavers at the end of them, and the day seems longer than most people's whole lives, and perhaps they make a mud castle with mud figures of men and horses and buffaloes, and put reeds into the men's hands, and pretend that they are kings and the figures are their armies, or that they are gods to be worshiped. Then evening comes, and the children call and the buffaloes lumber out of the sticky mud, with noises like gunshots going off, one after the other, and they all straying across the grey plain back to the twinkling village lights. Day after day Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their wallows, and day after day he would see grey brothers back a mile and a half across the plain, so he knew that Sher Khan had not come back, and day after day he would lie on the grass listening to the noises round him, and dreaming of old days in the jungle. If Sher Khan had made a false step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the Wayne Gunga, Mowgli would have heard him in those long, still mornings. At last the day came when he did not see grey brother at the signal-place, and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the de-huck-tree, which was all covered with golden red flowers. There sat grey brother, every bristle on his back lifted. He has hidden for a month to throw thee off thy guard. He crossed the ranges last night with tobaki, hot foot on thy trail, said the wolf panting. Mowgli frowned, I am not afraid of Sher Khan, but tobaki is very cunning. Have no fear, said grey brother, licking his lips a little. I met tobaki in the dawn. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the kites, but he told me everything before I broke his back. Sher Khan's plan is to wait for thee at the village gate this evening, for thee and for no one else. He is lying up now in the big dry ravine of the Wangonga. Has he eaten to-day, or does he haunt empty, said Mowgli, for the answer meant life and death to him. He killed at dawn a pig, and he has drunk too. Remember, Sher Khan could never fast, even for the sake of revenge. Oh, fool, fool, what a cub's cub it is, eaten and drunk too, and he thinks that I shall wait till he has slept. Now, where does he lie up? If there were but ten of us, we might pull him down as he lies. These buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him, and I cannot speak their language. Can we get behind his track so that they may smell it? He swam far down the Wangonga to cut that off, said grey brother. Tobaki told him that I know. He would never have thought of it alone.  The big ravine of the Wangonga, that opens out on the plain, not half a mile from here. I can take the herd round through the jungle to the head of the ravine, and then sweep down. But he would slink out at the foot. We must block that end. Grey brother, can't thou cut the herd in two for me? Not I, perhaps, but I have brought a wise helper. Grey brother trotted off and dropped into a hole.  The hunting howl of a wolf at midday. Achila! Achila! said Mowgli, clapping his hands. I might have known that thou wouldst not forget me. We have a big work in hand. Cut the herd in two, Achila. Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls and the plow buffaloes by themselves. The two wolves ran, ladies' chain fashion, in and out of the herd, which snorted and threw up its head, and separated into two clumps. In one the cow buffaloes stood with their calves in the center, and glared and pawed, ready if a wolf would only stay still to charge down and trample the life out of him. In the other, the bulls and the young bulls snorted and stamped, but though they looked more imposing they were much less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect. No six men could have divided the herd so neatly. What orders, panted Achila, they are trying to join again. Mowgli slipped on to Rama's back. Drive the bulls away to the left, Achila. Gray brother, when we are gone, hold the cows together and drive them to the foot of the ravine. How far, said gray brother, panting and snapping? Till the sides are higher than Sher Khan can jump, shouted Mowgli, keep them there till we come down. The bulls swept off as Achila bathed, and gray brother stopped in front of the cows. They charged down on him and he ran just before them to the foot of the ravine as Achila drove the bulls far to the left. Well done. Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful now. Careful, Achila. A snap too much and the bulls will charge. Hoja! This is wilder work than driving Black Buck. Dits thou think these creatures could move so swiftly? Mowgli called. I have. I have hunted these too in my time, gasped Achila in the dust. Shall I turn them into the jungle? I turn, swiftly turn them. Rama is mad with rage. Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him today. The bulls were turned to the right this time and crashed into the standing thicket. The other heard children, watching with the cattle half a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry them, crying that the buffaloes had gone mad and run away. But Mowgli's plan was simple enough. All he wanted to do was to make a big circle uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the bulls down it and catch Cherkan between the bulls and the cows. For he knew that after a meal and a full drink Cherkan would not be in any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine. He was soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Achila had dropped far to the rear, only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rearguard. It was a long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and give Cherkan warning. At last Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd at the head of the ravine on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to the ravine itself. From that height you could see across the tops of the trees down to the plain below, but what Mowgli looked at was the sides of the ravine, and he saw with a great satisfaction that they ran nearly straight up and down, while the vines and creepers that hung over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out. Let them breathe Achila, he said holding up his hand. They have not winded him yet. Let them breathe. I must tell Cherkan who comes. We have him in the trap. End of Part 1 of Tiger, Tiger Chapter 6 of the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Tiger, Tiger, Part 2 and Mowgli's song He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine. It was almost like shouting down a tunnel, and the echoes jumped from rock to rock. After a long time there came back the drawing sleepy snarl of a full-fed tiger just wakened. Who goes? said Cherkan, and a splendid peacock fluttered up out of the ravine screeching. Hi! Mowgli! Cattle thief, it is time to come to the council rock. Down, hurry them down Achila, down Rama down. The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but Achila gave tongue in the full hunting yell, and they pitched over one after the other just as steamers shoot rapids. The sand and stones spurred it up round them. Once started there was no chance of stopping, and before they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Cherkan and bellowed. Ha! Ha! said Mowgli on his back. Now thou knowest! And the torrent of black horns foaming muzzles and staring eyes whirled down the ravine just as boulders go down in flood time, the weaker buffaloes being shouldered out to the sides of the ravine where they tore through the creepers. They knew what the business was before them, the terrible charge of the buffalo herd, against which no tiger can hope to stand. Cherkan heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up and lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to side for some way of escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight up, and he had to hold on, heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do anything rather than fight. The herd splashed through the pool he had just left, bellowing till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard an answering bellow from the foot of the ravine, saw Cherkan turn, the tiger knew, if the worst came to the worst, it was better to meet the bulls than the cows with their calves, and then Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on over something soft, and with the bulls at his heels crashed full into the other herd, while the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their feet by the shock of the meeting. That charge carried both herds out into the plain, gorying and stamping and snorting. Mowgli watched his time, and slipped off Rama's neck, laying about him right and left with his stick. Quick, Akila, break them up, scatter them, or they will be fighting one another. Drive them away, Akila. Hi, Rama. Hi, hi, hi, my children. Softly now, softly. It is all over. Akila and Gray Brother ran to and fro nipping the buffalo's legs, and, though the herd wheeled once to charge up the ravine again, Mowgli managed to turn Rama, and the others followed him to the Wallows. Cherkan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the kites were coming for him already. Brothers, that was a dog's death. Feeling for the knife he always carried in a sheath round his neck, now that he lived with men, but he would never have shown fight. His hide will look well on the council rock. We must get to work swiftly. A boy trained among men would never have dreamed of skinning a ten-foot tiger alone, but Mowgli knew better than anyone else how an animal's skin is fitted on, and how it can be taken off. But it was hard work, and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour, while the wolves lulled out their tongues, or came forward and tugged as he ordered them. Presently a hand fell on his shoulder, and, looking up, he saw Buldeo with the tower musket. The children had told the village about the buffalo stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only two inches to correct Mowgli for not taking better care of the herd. The wolves dropped out of sight as soon as they saw the man coming. What is this folly, said Buldeo angrily, to think that thou canst skin a tiger? Where did the buffaloes kill him? It is the lame tiger, too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well, we will overlook thy letting the herd run off, and perhaps I will give thee one of the rupees of the reward when I have taken the skin to Kanhawara. He fumbled in his waist-cloth for flint and steel, and stooped down to singe sheer Khan's whiskers. Most native hunters always singe a tiger's whiskers to prevent his ghost from haunting them. Said Mowgli, hapte himself as he ripped back the skin of a forepaw, so thou will take the hide to Kanhawara for the reward, and perhaps give me one rupee? Now it is in my mind that I need the skin for my own use. Heh! Oh, man, take away that fire! What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village? Thy luck and the stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill. The tiger has just fed, or he would have gone twenty miles by this time.  Mowgli, I will not give thee one honor of the reward, but only a very big beating. Leave the carcass. By the bull that bought me, said Mowgli, who was trying to get at the shoulder, must I stay babbling to an old ape all noon? Here, Akhila, this man plagues me. Buldeo, who was stooping over Sher Khan's head, found himself sprawling on the grass, with a gray wolf standing over him, while Mowgli went on skinning as though he were alone in all India. Yes, he said between his teeth, thou wart altogether right, Buldeo, thou wilt never give me one honor of the reward. There is an old war between this lame tiger and myself, a very old war, and I have won. To do Buldeo justice, if he had been ten years younger, he would have taken his chance with Akhila, had he met the wolf in the woods, but a wolf who obeyed the orders of this boy, who had private wars with man-eating tigers, was not a common animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind, thought Buldeo, and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would protect him. He lay astill astill, expecting every minute to see Mowgli turn into a tiger too. Maharaja, great king, he said at last at a husky whisper. Yes, said Mowgli without turning his head, chuckling a little. I am an old man, I did not know that thou wasst anything more than a herdsboy. May I rise up and go away, or wilt thy servant tear me to pieces. Go, and peace go with thee. Only another time do not meddle with my game. Let him go, Akhila. Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could. Looking back over his shoulder, in case Mowgli should change into something terrible. When he got to the village, he told a tale of magic and enchantment and sorcery that made the priest look very grave. Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of the body. Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home. Help me herd them, Akhila. The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the village, Mowgli saw lights and heard the conscious and bells in the temple blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by the gate. That is because I have killed Sherkhan, he said to himself. But a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the villagers shouted, Sorcerer! Wolf's brat, jungle demon, go away! Get hence quickly or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot, Buldeo, shoot! The old tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed in pain. More sorcery, shouted the villagers, he can turn bullets! Buldeo, that was thy buffalo. Now what is this? said Mowgli bewildered as the stones flew thicker. They are not unlike the pack, these brothers of line, said Akhila, sitting down composedly. It is in my head that, if bullets mean anything, they would cast thee out. Wolf! Wolf's cub, go away! shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the sacred tool-seat-plant. Again, last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I am a wolf. Let us go, Akhila. A woman, it was Basua, ran across to the herd and cried, Oh my son, my son! They say thou art a sorcerer who can turn himself into a beast at will. I do not believe, but go away or they will kill thee. Buldeo says thou art a wizard, but I know that thou hast avenged Nathu's death. Come back, Masua! shouted the crowd. Come back, or we will stone thee.  Run back, Masua! This is one of the foolish tales they tell under the big tree at dusk. I have at least paid for thy son's life. Farewell and run quickly, for I shall send the herd in more swiftly than their brick-bats. I am no wizard, Masua. Farewell. Now, once more, Akhila, he cried, bring the herd in. The buffaloes were anxious enough to get to the village. They hardly needed Akhila's yell, but charged through the gate like a whirlwind, scattering the crowd right and left. Keep count, shouted Mowgli scornfully. It may be that I have stolen one of them. Keep count, for I will do your herding no more.  He turned on his heel and walked away with a lone wolf, and as he looked up at the stars he felt happy. No more sleeping in traps for me, Akhila.  No, we will not hurt the village, for Masua was kind to me.  Then they banged the temple bells and blew the conches louder than ever, and Masua cried and Buldeo embroidered the story of his adventures in the jungle till he ended by saying that Akhila stood up on his hind legs and talked like a man. The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the two wolves came to the hill of the council rock and they stopped at Mother Wolf's Cave. They have cast me out from the man-packed mother, shouted Mowgli, but I come with the hide of Shere Khan to keep my word. Mother Wolf walked stiffly from the cave with the cubs behind her, and her eyes glowed as she saw the skin. I told him on that day when he crammed his head and shoulders into this cave, hunting for thy life, little frog, I told him that the hunter would be the hunted. It is well done. Little brother, it is well done, said a deep voice in the thicket. We are lonely in the jungle without thee. And Bagheera came running to Mowgli's bare feet. They clambered up the council rock together and Mowgli spread the skin out on the flat stone where Akhila used to sit and pegged it down with four slivers of bamboo, and Akhila lay down upon it and called the old call to the council. Look, look well, oh wolves, exactly as he had called when Mowgli was first brought there. Ever since Akhila had been deposed, the pack had been without a leader, hunting and fighting at their own pleasure, but they answered the call from habit, and some of them were lame from the traps they had fallen into, and some limped from shot wounds, and some were mangy from eating bad food, and many were missing. But they came to the council rock, all that were left of them, and saw Sherkhan's striped hide on the rock and the huge claws dangling at the end of the empty dangling feet. It was then that Mowgli made up a song that came up into his throat all by itself, and he shouted it aloud, leaping up and down on the rattling skin and beating time with his heels till he had no more breath left, while Grey Brother and Akhila howled between the verses. Look well, oh wolves, have I kept my word, said Mowgli, and the wolves bade, yes, and one tattered wolf howled, lead us again, oh Akhila, lead us again, oh man-cub, for we be sick of this lawlessness, and we would be the free people once more. Nay, heard Bhagheera, that may not be, when year full fed the madness may come upon you again, not for nothing or ye call the free people, ye fought for freedom, and it is yours, eat it, oh wolves. Man-pack and wolf-pack have cast me out, said Mowgli, now I will hunt alone in the jungle, and we will hunt with thee, said the four-cubs. So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four-cubs in the jungle from that day on, but he was not always alone, because years afterward he became a man and married, but that is a story for grown-ups. Mowgli's song, that he sang at the council-rock when he danced on Cher Khan's hide. The song that Mowgli, I Mowgli, am singing, let the jungle listen to the things I have done. Cher Khan said he would kill, would kill, at the gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli the frog. He ate and he drank, drank deep, Cher Khan, for when wilt thou drink again, sleep and dream of the kill? I am alone on the grazing grounds, gray brother come to me, come to me, lone wolf, for there is big game afoot. Bring up the great bull buffaloes, the blue-skinned herd bulls with the angry eyes, drive them to and fro as I order. Sleep as thou still, Cher Khan, wake awake, here come I, and the bulls are behind. Rama, the king of the buffalo, stamped with his foot. Waters of the Wanganga wither went Cher Khan. He is not icky to dig holes, nor mail the peacock that he should fly. He is not mang the bat to hang in the branches. Little bamboos that creaked together tell me where he ran. Oh, he is there. Ah, oh, he is there. Under the feet of Rama lies the lame one. Up, Cher Khan, up and kill. Here is meat, break the necks of the bulls. He is asleep. We will not wake him for his strength is very great. The kites have come down to see it. The black ants have come up to know it. There is a great assembly in his honor. Ah, lala, I have no cloth to wrap me. The kites will see that I am naked. I am ashamed to meet all these people. Lend me thy coat, Cher Khan.  By the bull that bought me I made a promise, a little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before I keep my word. With a knife, with a knife that menus, with a knife of the hunter, I will stoop down for my gift. Waters of the Wanganga, Cher Khan gives me his coat, for the love that he bears me. Pull, gray brother, pull, Akila, heavy is the hide of Cher Khan. The men pack are angry. They throw stones and talk, child's talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let me run away. Through the night, through the hot night, run swiftly with me, my brothers. We will leave the lights of the village and go to the low moon. Waters of the Wanganga, the men pack have cast me out. I did them no harm, but they were afraid of me. Why? Wolf pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is shut to me and the village gates are shut. Why? As mang flies between the beasts and birds, so fly high between the village and the jungle. Why? I dance on the hide of Cher Khan, but my heart is very happy. My mouth is cut and wounded with the stones from the village, but my heart is very light, because I have come back to the jungle. Why? These two things fight together in me as the snakes fight in the spring. The water comes out of my eyes, yet I laugh while it falls. Why? I am two mogulies, but the hide of Cher Khan is under my feet. All the jungle knows that I have killed Cher Khan. Look, look well, owls. Aye, my heart is heavy with the things that I do not understand. End of Part 2 of Tiger, Tiger and Mowgli's Song. Chapter 7 of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The White Seal, Part 1 O hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, and black are the waters that sparkle so green. The moon, or the comers, looks downward to find us, at rest in the hollows that rustle between. Where billow meets billow, then soft be thy pillow, a weary we flipperling curl at thy ease. The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas. Seal Lullaby All these things happened several years ago, at a place called Novastashan, or North East Point, on the island of St. Paul, away and away in the Bering Sea. Lemershin, the winter wren, told me the tale when he was blown on the rigging of a steamer going to Japan, and I took him down to my cabin and warmed and fed him for several days till he was fit to fly back to St. Paul's again. Lemershin is a very quaint little bird, but he knows how to tell the truth. Nobody comes to Novastashan except on business, and the only people who have regular business there are the Seals. They come in the summer months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the Cold Gray Sea, for Novastashan Beach has the finest accommodation for Seals of any place in all the world. Sea-catch knew that, and every spring would swim from whatever place he happened to be in, would swim like a torpedo boat, straight for Novastashan, and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good place on the rocks as close to the sea as possible. Sea-catch was fifteen years old, a huge gray fur seal with almost a mane on his shoulders, and long wicked dog teeth. When he heaved himself up on his front flippers, he stood more than four feet clear of the ground, and his weight, if anyone had been bold enough to weigh him, was nearly seven hundred pounds. He was scarred all over with a marks of savage fights, but he was always ready for just one fight more. He would put his head on one side as though he were afraid to look his enemy in the face. Then he would shoot it out like lightning, and when the big teeth were firmly fixed on the other seal's neck the other seal might get away if he could, but Sea-catch would not help him. Yet Sea-catch never chased a beacon seal, or that was against the rules of the beach. He only wanted room by the sea for his nursery. But as there were forty or fifty thousand other seals hunting for the same thing each spring, the whistling, bellowing, roaring and blowing on the beach was something frightful. From a little hill, called Hutchinson's Hill, you could look over three and a half miles of ground covered with fighting seals. The surf was dotted all over with the heads of seals hurrying to land and begin their share of the fighting.  Their wives never came to the island until late in May or early in June, for they did not care to be torn to pieces, and the young two, three and four-year-old seals, who had not begun housekeeping, went inland about half a mile through the ranks of the fighters, and played about on the sand dunes in droves and legions, and rubbed off every single green thing that grew. They were called hullous chicky, but bachelors, and there were perhaps two or three hundred thousand of them at Novostoshan alone. Sea-catch had just finished his forty-fifth fight one spring, when Matka, his soft, sleek, gentle-eyed wife, came up out of the sea, and he caught her by the scruff of the neck, and dumped her down on his reservation, saying gruffly, late as usual, where have you been? It was not the fashion for Sea-catch to eat anything during the four months he stayed on the beaches, and so his temper was generally bad. Matka knew better than to answer back. She looked round and cooed, how thoughtful of you, you've taken the old place again. I should think I had, said Sea-catch, look at me. He was scratched and bleeding in twenty places, one eye was almost out, and his sides were torn to ribbons.  Why can't you be sensible and settle your places quietly? You look as though you have been fighting with the killer whale. I haven't been doing anything but fight since the middle of May. The beach is disgracefully crowded this season. I've met at least a hundred seals from Lukanon Beach, house-hunting. Why can't people stay where they belong? I've often thought we should be much happier if we hauled out at Otter Island instead of this crowded place, said Matka. Bah, only the holest chicky go to Otter Island. If we went there they would say we were afraid. We must preserve appearances, my dear.  Now that all the seals and their wives were on the land, you could hear their clamor miles out to sea above the loudest gales. At the lowest counting there were over a million seals on the beach, old seals, mother seals, tiny babies, and holest chicky fighting, scuffling, bleeding, crawling, and playing together, going down to the sea and coming up from it in gangs and regiments, lying over every foot of ground as far as the eye could reach, and skirmishing about in brigades through the fog. It was nearly always foggy at Novostoshan, except when the sun comes out and makes everything look all pearly and rainbow-colored for a little while. Kotick, Matka's baby, was born in the middle of that confusion, and he was all head and shoulders with pale, watery blue eyes, as tiny seals must be, but there was something about his coat that made his mother look at him very closely. Seacatch, she said at last, our baby's going to be white. Empty clams and dry seaweed, snorted Seacatch, there never has been such a thing in the world as a white seal. I can't help that, said Matka, there's going to be now. And she sang the low, crooning seal song that all the mother seals sang to their babies. You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old, or your head will be sunk by your heels, and summer gales and killer whales are bad for baby seals, are bad for baby seals, dear rat, as bad as bad can be, but splashing grows strong, and you can't be wrong, child of the open sea. Of course the little fellow did not understand the words at first. He paddled and scrambled about by his mother's side, and learned to scuffle out of the way when his father was fighting with another seal, and the two rolled and roared up and down the slippery rocks. Matka used to go to sea to get things to eat, and the baby was fed only once in two days, but then he ate all he could and throw upon it. The first thing he did was to crawl inland, and there he met tens of thousands of babies of his own age, and they played together like puppies, went to sleep on the clean sand and played again. The old people in the nurseries took no notice of them, and the holless chicky kept to their own grounds, and the babies had a beautiful playtime. When Matka came back from her deep sea fishing, she would go straight to their playground and call as a sheep calls for a lamb, and wait until she heard Kotick bleed. Then she would take the straightest of straight lines in his direction, striking out with her foreflippers and knocking the youngsters head over heels, right and left. There were always a few hundred mothers hunting for their children through the playgrounds, and the babies were kept lively, but as Matka told Kotick, so long as you don't lie in muddy water and get mainge, I'll rub the hard sand into a cut or scratch, and so long as you never go swimming when there is a heavy sea, nothing will hurt you here. Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unhappy till they learn.  After that he learned to lie in a beach pool and let the wash of the waves just cover him and lift him up while he paddled, but he always kept his eye open for big waves that might hurt. He was two weeks learning to use his flippers, and all that while he floundered in and out of the water, and coughed and grunted and crawled up the beach, and took catnaps on the sand, and went back again, until at last he found that he truly belonged to the water. Then you can imagine the times that he had with his companions, ducking under the rollers, or coming in on top of a Comorin landing with a swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach, or standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did, or playing, I'm the king of the castle, on slippery weedy rocks that just stuck out of the wash. Now and then he would see a thin fin, like a big shark's fin, drifting along close to shore, and he knew that that was the killer whale, the grampus, who eats young seals when he can get them, and Kotek would head for the beach like an arrow, and the fin would jig off slowly as if it were looking for nothing at all. Late in October the seals began to leave St. Paul's for the deep sea by families and tribes, and there was no more fighting over the nurseries, and the Hollischiki played anywhere they liked. Next year, said Makka to Kotek, you will be a Hollischiki, but this year you must learn how to catch fish. They set out together across the Pacific, and Makka showed Kotek how to sleep on his back with his flippers tucked down by his side, and his little nose just out of the water. No cradle is so comfortable as the long, rocking swell of the Pacific. When Kotek felt his skin tangle all over, Makka told him he was learning the feel of the water, and that tingly, prickly feelings met bad weather coming, and he must swim hard and get away. In a little time, she said, you'll know where to swim to, but just now we'll follow Seapig, the porpoise, for he is very wise. A school of porpoises were ducking and tearing through the water, and little Kotek followed them as fast as he could. How do you know where to go to, he panted. The leader of the school rolled his white eye and ducked under. My tail tingles, youngster, he said. That means there's a gale behind me. Come along. When you're south of the sticky water, he met the equator. And your tail tingles.  Come along. The water feels bad here. This was one of the very many things that Kotek learned, and he was always learning. Makka taught him to follow the cod and the halibut along the undersea banks, and wrench the rockling out of his hold among the weeds. How to skirt the wrecks, laying a hundred fathoms below water, and dart like a rifle bullet in