hunting. Hear them howl!"

Nearly half the pack had seen the trap their fellows rushed
into, and turning sharp aside had flung themselves into the
water where the gorge broke down in steep banks. Their cries of
rage and their threats against the "tree-ape" who had brought
them to their shame mixed with the yells and growls of those who
had been punished by the Little People. To remain ashore was
death, and every dhole knew it. Their pack was swept along the
current, down to the deep eddies of the Peace Pool, but even
there the angry Little People followed and forced them to the
water again. Mowgli could hear the voice of the tailless leader
bidding his people hold on and kill out every wolf in Seeonee.
But he did not waste his time in listening.

"One kills in the dark behind us!" snapped a dhole. "Here is
tainted water!"

Mowgli had dived forward like an otter, twitched a struggling
dhole under water before he could open his mouth, and dark rings
rose as the body plopped up, turning on its side. The dholes
tried to turn, but the current prevented them, and the Little
People darted at the heads and ears, and they could hear the
challenge of the Seeonee Pack growing louder and deeper in the
gathering darkness. Again Mowgli dived, and again a dhole went
under, and rose dead, and again the clamour broke out at the
rear of the pack; some howling that it was best to go ashore,
others calling on their leader to lead them back to the Dekkan,
and others bidding Mowgli show himself and he killed.

"They come to the fight with two stomachs and several voices,"
said Kaa. "The rest is with thy brethren below yonder, The
Little People go back to sleep. They have chased us far. Now I,
too, turn back, for I am not of one skin with any wolf.
Good hunting, Little Brother, and remember the dhole bites low."

A wolf came running along the bank on three legs, leaping up and
down, laying his head sideways close to the ground, hunching his
back, and breaking high into the air, as though he were playing
with his cubs. It was Won-tolla, the Outlier, and he said never
a word, but continued his horrible sport beside the dholes.
They had been long in the water now, and were swimming wearily,
their coats drenched and heavy, their bushy tails dragging like
sponges, so tired and shaken that they, too, were silent,
watching the pair of blazing eyes that moved abreast.

"This is no good hunting," said one, panting.

"Good hunting!" said Mowgli, as he rose boldly at the brute's
side, and sent the long knife home behind the shoulder, pushing
hard to avoid his dying snap.

"Art thou there, Man-cub?" said Won-tolla across the water.

"Ask of the dead, Outlier," Mowgli replied. "Have none come
down-stream? I have filled these dogs' mouths with dirt;
I have tricked them in the broad daylight, and their leader
lacks his tail, but here be some few for thee still.
Whither shall I drive them?"

"I will wait," said Won-tolla. "The night is before me."

Nearer and nearer came the bay of the Seeonee wolves. "For the
Pack, for the Full Pack it is met!" and a bend in the river
drove the dholes forward among the sands and shoals opposite
the Lairs.

Then they saw their mistake. They should have landed half a mile
higher up, and rushed the wolves on dry ground. Now it was too
late. The bank was lined with burning eyes, and except for the
horrible pheeal that had never stopped since sundown, there was
no sound in the Jungle. It seemed as though Won-tolla were
fawning on them to come ashore; and "Turn and take hold!" said
the leader of the dholes. The entire Pack flung themselves at
the shore, threshing and squattering through the shoal water,
till the face of the Waingunga was all white and torn, and the
great ripples went from side to side, like bow-waves from a
boat. Mowgli followed the rush, stabbing and slicing as the
dholes, huddled together, rushed up the river-beach in one wave.

Then the long fight began, heaving and straining and splitting
and scattering and narrowing and broadening along the red,
wet sands, and over and between the tangled tree-roots,
and through and among the bushes, and in and out of the grass
clumps; for even now the dholes were two to one. But they met
wolves fighting for all that made the Pack, and not only the
short, high, deep-chested, white-tusked hunters of the Pack,
but the anxious-eyed lahinis--the she-wolves of the lair, as the
saying is--fighting for their litters, with here and there a
yearling wolf, his first coat still half woolly, tugging and
grappling by their sides. A wolf, you must know, flies at the
throat or snaps at the flank, while a dhole, by preference,
bites at the belly; so when the dholes were struggling out of
the water and had to raise their heads, the odds were with the
wolves. On dry land the wolves suffered; but in the water or
ashore, Mowgli's knife came and went without ceasing. The Four
had worried their way to his side. Gray Brother, crouched
between the boy's knees, was protecting his stomach, while the
others guarded his back and either side, or stood over him when
the shock of a leaping, yelling dhole who had thrown himself


<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 |