answered contemptuously, "who, having torn up the grass,
know not how to eat it."

"For less than this," Mowgli groaned to himself, for less than
this even last Rains I had pricked Mysa out of his wallow,
and ridden him through the swamp on a rush halter." He stretched
a hand to break one of the feathery reeds, but drew it back with
a sigh. Mysa went on steadily chewing the cud, and the long
grass ripped where the cow grazed. "I will not die HERE,"
he said angrily. "Mysa, who is of one blood with Jacala and
the pig, would see me. Let us go beyond the swamp and see what
comes. Never have I run such a spring running--hot and cold
together. Up, Mowgli!"

He could not resist the temptation of stealing across the reeds
to Mysa and pricking him with the point of his knife. The great
dripping bull broke out of his wallow like a shell exploding,
while Mowgli laughed till he sat down.

"Say now that the hairless wolf of the Seeonee Pack once herded
thee, Mysa," he called.

"Wolf! THOU?" the bull snorted, stamping in the mud. "All the
jungle knows thou wast a herder of tame cattle--such a man's
brat as shouts in the dust by the crops yonder. THOU of the
Jungle! What hunter would have crawled like a snake among the
leeches, and for a muddy jest--a jackal's jest--have shamed me
before my cow? Come to firm ground, and I will--I will . . ."
Mysa frothed at the mouth, for Mysa has nearly the worst temper
of any one in the Jungle.

Mowgli watched him puff and blow with eyes that never changed.
When he could make himself heard through the pattering mud,
he said: "What Man-Pack lair here by the marshes, Mysa? This is
new Jungle to me."

"Go north, then," roared the angry bull, for Mowgli had pricked
him rather sharply. "It was a naked cow-herd's jest. Go and tell
them at the village at the foot of the marsh."

"The Man-Pack do not love jungle-tales, nor do I think, Mysa,
that a scratch more or less on thy hide is any matter for a
council. But I will go and look at this village. Yes, I will go.
Softly now. It is not every night that the Master of the Jungle
comes to herd thee."

He stepped out to the shivering ground on the edge of the marsh,
well knowing that Mysa would never charge over it and laughed,
as he ran, to think of the bull's anger.

"My strength is not altogether gone," he said. It may be that
the poison is not to the bone. There is a star sitting low
yonder." He looked at it between his half-shut hands. "By the
Bull that bought me, it is the Red Flower--the Red Flower that
I lay beside before--before I came even to the first Seeonee
Pack! Now that I have seen, I will finish the running."

The marsh ended in a broad plain where a light twinkled.
It was a long time since Mowgli had concerned himself with
the doings of men, but this night the glimmer of the Red Flower
drew him forward.

"I will look," said he, "as I did in the old days, and I will
see how far the Man-Pack has changed."

Forgetting that he was no longer in his own Jungle, where he
could do what he pleased, he trod carelessly through the dew-
loaded grasses till he came to the hut where the light stood.
Three or four yelping dogs gave tongue, for he was on the
outskirts of a village.

"Ho!" said Mowgli, sitting down noiselessly, after sending back
a deep wolf-growl that silenced the curs. "What comes will come.
Mowgli, what hast thou to do any more with the lairs of the
Man-Pack?" He rubbed his mouth, remembering where a stone had
struck it years ago when the other Man-Pack had cast him out.

The door of the hut opened, and a woman stood peering out
into the darkness. A child cried, and the woman said over her
shoulder, "Sleep. It was but a jackal that waked the dogs.
In a little time morning comes."

Mowgli in the grass began to shake as though he had fever.
He knew that voice well, but to make sure he cried softly,
surprised to find how man's talk came back, "Messua! O Messua!"

"Who calls?" said the woman, a quiver in her voice.

"Hast thou forgotten?" said Mowgli. His throat was dry as
he spoke.

"If it be THOU, what name did I give thee? Say!" She had half
shut the door, and her hand was clutching at her breast.

"Nathoo! Ohe, Nathoo!" said Mowgli, for, as you remember, that
was the name Messua gave him when he first came to the Man-Pack.

"Come, my son," she called, and Mowgli stepped into the light,
and looked full at Messua, the woman who had been good to him,
and whose life he had saved from the Man-Pack so long before.


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