He had just time to snatch up his paw as the skinning-knife cut
deep into the ground below. Mowgli struck quicker than an
average human eye could follow but Akela was a wolf; and even a
dog, who is very far removed from the wild wolf, his ancestor,
can be waked out of deep sleep by a cart-wheel touching his
flank, and can spring away unharmed before that wheel comes on.

"Another time," Mowgli said quietly, returning the knife to its
sheath, "speak of the Man-Pack and of Mowgli in TWO breaths--
not one."

"Phff! That is a sharp tooth," said Akela, snuffing at the
blade's cut in the earth, "but living with the Man-Pack has
spoiled thine eye, Little Brother. I could have killed a buck
while thou wast striking."

Bagheera sprang to his feet, thrust up his head as far as he
could, sniffed, and stiffened through every curve in his body.
Gray Brother followed his example quickly, keeping a little
to his left to get the wind that was blowing from the right,
while Akela bounded fifty yards up wind, and, half-crouching,
stiffened too. Mowgli looked on enviously. He could smell things
as very few human beings could, but he had never reached the
hair-trigger-like sensitiveness of a Jungle nose; and his three
months in the smoky village had set him back sadly. However,
he dampened his finger, rubbed it on his nose, and stood erect
to catch the upper scent, which, though it is the faintest,
is the truest.

"Man!" Akela growled, dropping on his haunches.

"Buldeo!" said Mowgli, sitting down. "He follows our trail, and
yonder is the sunlight on his gun. Look!"

It was no more than a splash of sunlight, for a fraction of a
second, on the brass clamps of the old Tower musket, but nothing
in the Jungle winks with just that flash, except when the clouds
race over the sky. Then a piece of mica, or a little pool, or
even a highly-polished leaf will flash like a heliograph. But
that day was cloudless and still.

"I knew men would follow," said Akela triumphantly. "Not for
nothing have I led the Pack."

The four cubs said nothing, but ran down hill on their
bellies, melting into the thorn and under-brush as a mole
melts into a lawn.

"Where go ye, and without word?" Mowgli called.

"H'sh! We roll his skull here before mid-day!" Gray Brother
answered.

"Back! Back and wait! Man does not eat Man!" Mowgli shrieked.

"Who was a wolf but now? Who drove the knife at me for thinking
he might be Man?" said Akela, as the four wolves turned back
sullenly and dropped to heel.

"Am I to give reason for all I choose to, do?" said Mowgli
furiously.

"That is Man! There speaks Man!" Bagheera muttered under his
whiskers. "Even so did men talk round the King's cages at
Oodeypore. We of the Jungle know that Man is wisest of all.
If we trusted our ears we should know that of all things he
is most foolish." Raising his voice, he added, "The Man-cub is
right in this. Men hunt in packs. To kill one, unless we know
what the others will do, is bad hunting. Come, let us see what
this Man means toward us."

"We will not come," Gray Brother growled. "Hunt alone, Little
Brother. WE know our own minds. The skull would have been ready
to bring by now."

Mowgli had been looking from one to the other of his friends,
his chest heaving and his eyes full of tears. He strode forward
to the wolves, and, dropping on one knee, said: "Do I not know
my mind? Look at me!"

They looked uneasily, and when their eyes wandered, he called
them back again and again, till their hair stood up all over
their bodies, and they trembled in every limb, while Mowgli
stared and stared.

"Now," said he, "of us five, which is leader?"

"Thou art leader, Little Brother," said Gray Brother, and he
licked Mowgli's foot.

"Follow, then," said Mowgli, and the four followed at his heels
with their tails between their legs.

"This comes of living with the Man-Pack," said Bagheera,
slipping down after them. "There is more in the Jungle now
than Jungle Law, Baloo."

The old bear said nothing, but he thought many things.



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