Mowgli cut across noiselessly through the Jungle, at right
angles to Buldeo's path, till, parting the undergrowth, he saw
the old man, his musket on his shoulder, running up the trail
of overnight at a dog-trot.

You will remember that Mowgli had left the village with the
heavy weight of Shere Khan's raw hide on his shoulders, while
Akela and Gray Brother trotted behind, so that the triple trail
was very clearly marked. Presently Buldeo came to where Akela,
as you know, had gone back and mixed it all up. Then he sat
down, and coughed and grunted, and made little casts round and
about into the Jungle to pick it up again, and, all the time he
could have thrown a stone over those who were watching him.
No one can be so silent as a wolf when he does not care to be
heard; and Mowgli, though the wolves thought he moved very
clumsily, could come and go like a shadow. They ringed the old
man as a school of porpoises ring a steamer at full speed, and
as they ringed him they talked unconcernedly, for their speech
began below the lowest end of the scale that untrained human
beings can hear. [The other end is bounded by the high squeak of
Mang, the Bat, which very many people cannot catch at all. From
that note all the bird and bat and insect talk takes on.]

"This is better than any kill," said Gray Brother, as Buldeo
stooped and peered and puffed. "He looks like a lost pig in
the Jungles by the river. What does he say?" Buldeo was
muttering savagely.

Mowgli translated. "He says that packs of wolves must have
danced round me. He says that he never saw such a trail in
his life. He says he is tired."

"He will be rested before he picks it up again," said Bagheera
coolly, as he slipped round a tree-trunk, in the game of
blindman's-buff that they were playing. "NOW, what does the
lean thing do?"

"Eat or blow smoke out of his mouth. Men always play with their
mouths," said Mowgli; and the silent trailers saw the old man
fill and light and puff at a water-pipe, and they took good note
of the smell of the tobacco, so as to be sure of Buldeo in the
darkest night, if necessary.

Then a little knot of charcoal-burners came down the path, and
naturally halted to speak to Buldeo, whose fame as a hunter
reached for at least twenty miles round. They all sat down and
smoked, and Bagheera and the others came up and watched while
Buldeo began to tell the story of Mowgli, the Devil-child,
from one end to another, with additions and inventions. How he
himself had really killed Shere Khan; and how Mowgli had turned
himself into a wolf, and fought with him all the afternoon, and
changed into a boy again and bewitched Buldeo's rifle, so that
the bullet turned the corner, when he pointed it at Mowgli,
and killed one of Buldeo's own buffaloes; and how the village,
knowing him to be the bravest hunter in Seeonee, had sent him
out to kill this Devil-child. But meantime the village had got
hold of Messua and her husband, who were undoubtedly the father
and mother of this Devil-child, and had barricaded them in
their own hut, and presently would torture them to make them
confess they were witch and wizard, and then they would be
burned to death.

"When?" said the charcoal-burners, because they would very much
like to be present at the ceremony.

Buldeo said that nothing would be done till he returned,
because the village wished him to kill the Jungle Boy first.
After that they would dispose of Messua and her husband, and
divide their lands and buffaloes among the village. Messua's
husband had some remarkably fine buffaloes, too. It was an
excellent thing to destroy wizards, Buldeo thought; and people
who entertained Wolf-children out of the Jungle were clearly
the worst kind of witches.

But, said the charcoal-burners, what would happen if the English
heard of it? The English, they had heard, were a perfectly mad
people, who would not let honest farmers kill witches in peace.

Why, said Buldeo, the head-man of the village would report that
Messua and her husband had died of snake-bite. THAT was all
arranged, and the only thing now was to kill the Wolf-child.
They did not happen to have seen anything of such a creature?

The charcoal-burners looked round cautiously, and thanked their
stars they had not; but they had no doubt that so brave a man as
Buldeo would find him if any one could. The sun was getting
rather low, and they had an idea that they would push on to
Buldeo's village and see that wicked witch. Buldeo said that,
though it was his duty to kill the Devil-child, he could not
think of letting a party of unarmed men go through the Jungle,
which might produce the Wolf-demon at any minute, without his
escort. He, therefore, would accompany them, and if the
sorcerer's child appeared--well, he would show them how the best
hunter in Seeonee dealt with such things. The Brahmin, he said,
had given him a charm against the creature that made everything
perfectly safe.

"What says he? What says he? What says he?" the wolves repeated
every few minutes; and Mowgli translated until he came to the
witch part of the story, which was a little beyond him, and


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