To the Man-Trail where we may not follow more.

The second year after the great fight with Red Dog and the death
of Akela, Mowgli must have been nearly seventeen years old.
He looked older, for hard exercise, the best of good eating,
and baths whenever he felt in the least hot or dusty, had given
him strength and growth far beyond his age. He could swing by
one hand from a top branch for half an hour at a time, when he
had occasion to look along the tree-roads. He could stop a young
buck in mid-gallop and throw him sideways by the head. He could
even jerk over the big, blue wild boars that lived in the
Marshes of the North. The Jungle People who used to fear him
for his wits feared him now for his strength, and when he
moved quietly on his own affairs the mere whisper of his coming
cleared the wood-paths. And yet the look in his eyes was always
gentle. Even when he fought, his eyes never blazed as Bagheera's
did. They only grew more and more interested and excited;
and that was one of the things that Bagheera himself did
not understand.

He asked Mowgli about it, and the boy laughed and said.
"When I miss the kill I am angry. When I must go empty for two
days I am very angry. Do not my eyes talk then?"

"The mouth is hungry," said Bagheera, "but the eyes say nothing.
Hunting, eating, or swimming, it is all one--like a stone in wet
or dry weather." Mowgli looked at him lazily from under his long
eyelashes, and, as usual, the panther's head dropped. Bagheera
knew his master.

They were lying out far up the side of a hill overlooking the
Waingunga, and the morning mists hung below them in bands of
white and green. As the sun rose it changed into bubbling seas
of red gold, churned off, and let the low rays stripe the dried
grass on which Mowgli and Bagheera were resting. It was the end
of the cold weather, the leaves and the trees looked worn and
faded, and there was a dry, ticking rustle everywhere when the
wind blew. A little leaf tap-tap-tapped furiously against a
twig, as a single leaf caught in a current will. It roused
Bagheera, for he snuffed the morning air with a deep, hollow
cough, threw himself on his back, and struck with his fore-paws
at the nodding leaf above.

"The year turns," he said. "The Jungle goes forward. The Time of
New Talk is near. That leaf knows. It is very good."

"The grass is dry," Mowgli answered, pulling up a tuft.
"Even Eye-of-the-Spring [that is a little trumpet-shaped, waxy
red flower that runs in and out among the grasses]--even Eye-of-
the Spring is shut, and . . . Bagheera, IS it well for the Black
Panther so to lie on his back and beat with his paws in the air,
as though he were the tree-cat?"

"Aowh?" said Bagheera. He seemed to be thinking of other things.

"I say, IS it well for the Black Panther so to mouth and cough,
and howl and roll? Remember, we be the Masters of the Jungle,
thou and I."

"Indeed, yes; I hear, Man-cub." Bagheera rolled over hurriedly
and sat up, the dust on his ragged black flanks. (He was
just casting his winter coat.) "We be surely the Masters of
the Jungle! Who is so strong as Mowgli? Who so wise?" There was
a curious drawl in the voice that made Mowgli turn to see
whether by any chance the Black Panther were making fun of him,
for the Jungle is full of words that sound like one thing,
but mean another. "I said we be beyond question the Masters
of the Jungle," Bagheera repeated. "Have I done wrong? I did
not know that the Man-cub no longer lay upon the ground.
Does he fly, then?"

Mowgli sat with his elbows on his knees, looking out across the
valley at the daylight. Somewhere down in the woods below a bird
was trying over in a husky, reedy voice the first few notes of
his spring song. It was no more than a shadow of the liquid,
tumbling call he would be pouring later, but Bagheera heard it.

"I said the Time of New Talk is near," growled the panther,
switching his tail.

"I hear," Mowgli answered. "Bagheera, why dost thou shake all
over? The sun is warm."

"That is Ferao, the scarlet woodpecker," said Bagheera. "HE has
not forgotten. Now I, too, must remember my song," and he began
purring and crooning to himself, harking back dissatisfied
again and again.

"There is no game afoot," said Mowgli.

"Little Brother, are BOTH thine ears stopped? That is no
killing-word, but my song that I make ready against the need."

"I had forgotten. I shall know when the Time of New Talk is
here, because then thou and the others all run away and leave
me alone." Mowgli spoke rather savagely.

"But, indeed, Little Brother," Bagheera began, "we do not
always----"



<< 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 |