"Now this same Manling comes with soft, tickling words to this
same Flathead, telling him that he is wise and strong and
beautiful, and this same old Flathead believes and makes a
place, thus, for this same stone-throwing Manling, and--Art thou
at ease now? Could Bagheera give thee so good a resting-place?"

Kaa had, as usual, made a sort of soft half-hammock of himself
under Mowgli's weight. The boy reached out in the darkness,
and gathered in the supple cable-like neck till Kaa's head
rested on his shoulder, and then he told him all that had
happened in the Jungle that night.

"Wise I may be," said Kaa at the end; "but deaf I surely am.
Else I should have heard the pheeal. Small wonder the Eaters of
Grass are uneasy. How many be the dhole?"

"I have not yet seen. I came hot-foot to thee. Thou art older
than Hathi. But oh, Kaa,"--here Mowgli wriggled with sheerjoy,--
"it will be good hunting. Few of us will see another moon."

"Dost THOU strike in this? Remember thou art a Man; and remember
what Pack cast thee out. Let the Wolf look to the Dog. THOU art
a Man."

"Last year's nuts are this year's black earth," said Mowgli.
"It is true that I am a Man, but it is in my stomach that this
night I have said that I am a Wolf. I called the River and the
Trees to remember. I am of the Free People, Kaa, till the dhole
has gone by."

"Free People," Kaa grunted. "Free thieves! And thou hast tied
thyself into the death-knot for the sake of the memory of the
dead wolves? This is no good hunting."

"It is my Word which I have spoken. The Trees know, the
River knows. Till the dhole have gone by my Word comes not
back to me."

"Ngssh! This changes all trails. I had thought to take thee
away with me to the northern marshes, but the Word--even the
Word of a little, naked, hairless Manling--is the Word.
Now I, Kaa, say----"

"Think well, Flathead, lest thou tie thyself into the death-knot
also. I need no Word from thee, for well I know----"

"Be it so, then," said Kaa. "I will give no Word; but what is in
thy stomach to do when the dhole come?"

"They must swim the Waingunga. I thought to meet them with my
knife in the shallows, the Pack behind me; and so stabbing and
thrusting, we a little might turn them down-stream, or cool
their throats."

"The dhole do not turn and their throats are hot," said Kaa.
"There will be neither Manling nor Wolf-cub when that hunting is
done, but only dry bones."

"Alala! If we die, we die. It will be most good hunting. But my
stomach is young, and I have not seen many Rains. I am not wise
nor strong. Hast thou a better plan, Kaa?"

"I have seen a hundred and a hundred Rains. Ere Hathi cast
his milk-tushes my trail was big in the dust. By the First Egg,
I am older than many trees, and I have seen all that the Jungle
has done."

"But THIS is new hunting," said Mowgli. "Never before have the
dhole crossed our trail."

"What is has been. What will be is no more than a forgotten year
striking backward. Be still while I count those my years."

For a long hour Mowgli lay back among the coils, while Kaa,
his head motionless on the ground, thought of all that he had
seen and known since the day he came from the egg. The light
seemed to go out of his eyes and leave them like stale opals,
and now and again he made little stiff passes with his head,
right and left, as though he were hunting in his sleep.
Mowgli dozed quietly, for he knew that there is nothing like
sleep before hunting, and he was trained to take it at any hour
of the day or night.

Then he felt Kaa's back grow bigger and broader below him as the
huge python puffed himself out, hissing with the noise of a
sword drawn from a steel scabbard.

"I have seen all the dead seasons," Kaa said at last, "and the
great trees and the old elephants, and the rocks that were
bare and sharp-pointed ere the moss grew. Art THOU still
alive, Manling?"

"It is only a little after moonset," said Mowgli. I do not
understand----"

"Hssh! I am again Kaa. I knew it was but a little time. Now we
will go to the river, and I will show thee what is to be done
against the dhole."



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