"Are all these tales such cobwebs and moon talk?" said  Mowgli. "That tiger limps because he was born lame, as  everyone knows. To talk of the soul of a money-lender in a beast  that never had the courage of a jackal is child's talk."

Buldeo was speechless with surprise for a moment, and the

head-man stared.

"Oho! It is the jungle brat, is it?" said Buldeo. "If thou art so  wise, better bring his hide to Khanhiwara, for the  Government  has set a hundred rupees on his life. Better still, talk not when  thy elders speak."

Mowgli rose to go. "All the evening I have lain here listening," he called back over his shoulder, "and, except once or twice,

Buldeo has not said one word of  truth concerning the jungle, which is at his very doors. How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins which he says he has seen?"

"It is full time that boy went to herding," said the head-man,

while Buldeo puffed and snorted at Mowgli's impertinence.

The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning, and bring them back at night. The very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that hardly come up to their noses.  So long as the boys keep with the herds they are safe, for not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle. But if they straggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards, they are sometimes  carried off.  Mowgli went through the village street in the dawn, sitting on the back of Rama, the great herd bull. The slaty-blue buffaloes, with their long, backward-sweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out their byres, one by one, and followed him, and Mowgli made it very clear to the children with him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes with a long, polished bamboo, and told  Kamya, one of the boys, to graze the cattle by themselves, while he went on with the buffaloes, and to be very careful not to stray away from the herd.

An Indian grazing ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear.  The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing or basking in the warm mud for hours.  Mowgli drove them on to the edge of the plain where the  Waingunga came out of the jungle; then he dropped from Rama's neck, trotted off to a bamboo clump, and found Gray Brother.  "Ah," said Gray Brother, "I have waited here very many days.  What is the meaning of this cattle-herding work?"

"It is an order," said Mowgli. "I am a village herd for a while.

What news of Shere Khan?"

"He has come back to this country, and has waited here a long  time for thee. Now he has gone off again,  for the game is scarce.  But he means to kill thee."

"Very good," said Mowgli. "So long as he is away do thou or  one of the four brothers sit on that rock, so that I can see thee  as I come out of the village. When he comes back wait for me in  the ravine by the dhak tree in the center of the plain. We need  not walk into Shere Khan's mouth."

Then Mowgli picked out a shady place, and lay down and slept while the buffaloes grazed round him. Herding in India is one of the laziest things in the world. The cattle move and crunch, and lie down, and move on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt, and the buffaloes very seldom say anything, but get down into the muddy pools one after another, and work their way into the mud till only their noses and staringchina-blue eyes show above the surface, and then they lie like logs. The sun makes the rocks dance in the heat, and the herd children hear one kite (never any more) whistling almost out of sight overhead, and they know that if they died, or a cow died, that kite would sweep down, and the next kite miles away would see him drop and follow, and the next, and the next, and almost before they were dead there would be a score of hungry kites come out of nowhere. Then they sleep and wake and sleep again, and weave little baskets of dried grass and put grasshoppers in them; or catch two praying mantises and make them fight; or string a necklace of red and black jungle nuts; or watch a lizard basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the wallows.  Then they  sing long, long songs with odd native quavers at the end of them, and the day seems longer than most people's whole lives, and perhaps they make a mud castle with mud figures of men and horses and buffaloes, and put reeds into the men's hands, and pretend  that they are kings and the figures are their armies, or that they are gods to be worshiped. Then evening comes and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber up out of the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after the other, and they all string across the gray plain back to the twinkling village lights.

Day after day Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their wallows, and day after day he would see Gray Brother's back a mile and a half away across the plain (so he knew that Shere  Khan had not come back), and day after day he would lie on the grass listening to the noises round him, and dreaming of old days in the jungle. If Shere Khan had made a false step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the Waingunga, Mowgli would have heard him in those long, still mornings.

At last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal place, and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the dhk tree, which was all covered with golden-red flowers. There sat Gray Brother, every bristle on his back lifted.

"He has hidden for a month to throw thee off thy guard. He  crossed the ranges last night with Tabaqui, hot-foot on thy trail,"  said the Wolf, panting.

Mowgli frowned. "I am not afraid of Shere Khan, but Tabaqui

is very cunning."

"Have no fear," said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little. "I  met Tabaqui in the dawn. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the  kites, but he told me everything before I broke his back. Shere  Khan's plan is to wait for thee at the village gate this evening— for thee and for no one else. He is lying up now, in the big dry  ravine of the Waingunga."

"Has he eaten today, or does he hunt empty?" said Mowgli, for

the answer meant life and death to him.

"He killed at dawn,—a pig,—and he has drunk too.  Remember, Shere Khan could never fast, even for the sake of  revenge."

"Oh! Fool, fool! What a cub's cub it is! Eaten and drunk too,  and he thinks that I shall wait till he has slept! Now, where does  he lie up? If there were but ten of us we might pull him down as he lies. These buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him,  and I cannot speak their language. Can we get behind his track  so that they may smell it?"

"He swam far down the Waingunga to cut that off," said Gray

Brother.

"Tabaqui told him that, I know. He would never have thought  of it alone." Mowgli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking.  "The big ravine of the Waingunga. That opens out on the plain  not half a mile from here. I can take the herd round through the  jungle to the head of the ravine and then sweep down—but he  would slink out at the foot. We must block that end. Gray  Brother, canst thou cut the herd in two for me?"

"Not I, perhaps—but I have brought a wise helper." Gray  Brother trotted off and dropped into a hole. Then there lifted up  a huge gray head that Mowgli knew well, and the hot air was  filled with the most desolate cry of all the jungle—the hunting  howl of a wolf at midday.

"Akela! Akela!" said Mowgli, clapping his hands. "I might have  known that thou wouldst not forget me. We have a big work in  hand. Cut the herd in two, Akela. Keep the cows and calves  together, and the bulls and the plow buffaloes by themselves."

The two wolves ran, ladies'-chain fashion, in and out of the herd, which  snorted and threw up its head, and separated into two clumps. In one, the cow-buffaloes stood with their calves in the center, and glared and pawed, ready, if a wolf would only stay still, to charge down and trample the life out of him. In the other, the bulls and the young bulls snorted and stamped, but though they looked more imposing they were much less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect. No six men could have divided the herd so neatly.

"What orders!" panted Akela. "They are trying to join again."

Mowgli slipped on to Rama's back. "Drive the bulls away to the left, Akela. Gray Brother, when we are gone, hold the cows together, and drive them into the foot of the ravine."

"How far?" said Gray Brother, panting and snapping.

"Till the sides are higher than Shere Khan can jump," shouted  Mowgli. "Keep them there till we come down." The bulls swept  off as Akela bayed, and Gray Brother stopped in front of the  cows. They charged down on him, and he ran just before them  to the foot of the ravine, as  Akela drove the bulls far to the left.

"Well done! Another charge and they are fairly started.  Careful, now—careful, Akela. A snap too much and the bulls will  charge. Hujah! This is wilder work than driving black-buck.  Didst thou think these creatures could move so swiftly?" Mowgli  called.

"I have—have hunted these too in my time," gasped Akela in the dust. "Shall I turn them into the jungle?"

"Ay! Turn. Swiftly turn them! Rama is mad with rage. Oh, if I

could only tell him what I need of him to-day."

The bulls were turned, to the right this time, and crashed into the standing thicket. The other herd children, watching with the cattle half a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry them, crying that the buffaloes had gone mad and

run away.

But Mowgli's plan was simple enough. All he wanted to do was to make a big circle uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between

the bulls and the cows; for he knew that after a meal and a full  drink Shere Khan would not be in any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine. He was soothing the  buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the rear,  only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rear-guard. It was a  long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine  and give Shere Khan warning. At last Mowgli rounded up the  bewildered herd at the head of the ravine on a grassy patch that  sloped steeply down to the ravine itself. From that height you  could see across the tops of the trees down to the plain below;  but what Mowgli looked at was the sides of the ravine, and he  saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they ran nearly straight up and down, while the vines and creepers that hung over them

would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out.

"Let them breathe, Akela," he said, holding up his hand. "They  have not winded him yet. Let them breathe. I must tell Shere  Khan who comes. We have him in the trap."

He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine—it was almost like shouting down a tunnel—and the echoes jumped from rock to rock.

After a long time there came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of

a full-fed tiger just wakened.

"Who calls?" said Shere Khan, and a splendid peacock

fluttered up out of the ravine screeching.

"I, Mowgli. Cattle thief, it is time to come to the Council Rock!

Down—hurry them down, Akela! Down, Rama, down!"

The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but  Akela gave tongue in the full hunting-yell, and they pitched over one after the other, just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting up round them. Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and before they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Shere Khan and bellowed.

"Ha! Ha!" said Mowgli, on his back. "Now thou knowest!" and  the torrent of black horns, foaming muzzles, and staring eyes  whirled down the ravine just as boulders go down in floodtime;  the weaker buffaloes being shouldered out to the sides of the  ravine where they tore through the creepers. They knew what  the business was before them—the terrible charge of the buffalo  herd against which no tiger can hope to stand. Shere Khan heard  the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and lumbered  down the  ravine, looking from side to side for some way of  escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight and he had to  hold on, heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do  anything rather than fight. The herd splashed through the pool  he had just left, bellowing till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard  an answering bellow from the foot of the ravine, saw Shere Khan

turn (the tiger knew if the worst came to the worst it was better  to meet the bulls than the cows with their calves), and then  Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on again over something soft,  and, with the bulls at his heels, crashed full into the other herd,  while the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their feet by the  shock of the meeting. That charge carried both herds out into  the plain, goring and stamping and snorting. Mowgli watched  his time, and slipped off Rama's neck, laying about him right  and left with his stick.

"Quick, Akela! Break them up. Scatter them, or they will be  fighting one another.

Drive them away, Akela. Hai, Rama! Hai, hai, hai! my children. Softly now, softly! It is all over."

Akela and Gray Brother ran to and fro nipping the buffaloes' legs, and though the herd wheeled once to charge up the ravine again, Mowgli managed to turn Rama, and the others followed him to the wallows.

Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the

kites were coming for him already.

"Brothers, that was a dog's death," said Mowgli, feeling for the  knife he always carried in a sheath round his neck now that he  lived with men. "But he would never have shown fight. His hide  will look well on the Council Rock. We must get to work  swiftly."

A boy trained among men would never have dreamed of skinning a ten-foot tiger alone, but Mowgli knew better than anyone else how an animal's skin is  fitted on, and how it can be taken off. But it was hard work, and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour, while the wolves lolled out their tongues, or came forward and tugged as he ordered them.  Presently a hand fell on his shoulder, and looking  up he saw  Buldeo with the Tower musket. The children had told the village about the buffalo stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only too anxious to correct Mowgli for not taking better care of the herd. The wolves dropped out of sight as soon as they saw the man coming.

"What is this folly?" said Buldeo angrily. "To think that thou  canst skin a tiger! Where did the buffaloes kill him? It is the  Lame Tiger too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well,  well, we will overlook thy letting the herd run off, and perhaps I  will give thee one of the rupees of the reward when I have taken  the skin to Khanhiwara." He fumbled in his waist cloth for flint

and steel, and stooped down to singe Shere Khan's whiskers.  Most native hunters always singe a tiger's whiskers to prevent  his ghost from haunting them.

"Hum!" said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin  of a forepaw. "So thou wilt take the hide to Khanhiwara for the  reward, and perhaps give me one rupee? Now it is in my mind  that I need the skin for my own use. Heh! Old man, take away

that fire!"

"What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village? Thy luck  and the stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill.  The tiger has just fed, or he would have gone twenty miles by  this time . Thou canst not even skin him properly, little beggar  brat, and forsooth I, Buldeo, must be told not to singe his  whiskers. Mowgli, I will not give thee one anna of the reward,  but only a very big beating. Leave the carcass!"

"By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli, who was trying to  get at the shoulder, "must I stay babbling to an old ape all noon?  Here, Akela, this man plagues me."

Buldeo, who was still stooping over Shere Khan's head, found himself sprawling on the grass, with a gray wolf standing over him, while Mowgli went on skinning as though he were alone in all India.

"Ye-es," he said, between his teeth. "Thou art altogether right,  Buldeo. Thou wilt never give me one anna of the reward. There  is an old war between this lame tiger and myself—a  very old  war, and—I have won."

To do Buldeo justice, if he had been ten years younger he would have taken his chance with Akela had he met the wolf in

the woods, but a wolf who obeyed the orders of this boy who  had private wars with man-eating tigers was  not a common  animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind, thought Buldeo,  and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would  protect him. He lay as still as still, expecting every minute to see  Mowgli turn into a tiger too.

"Maharaj! Great King," he said at last in a husky whisper.

"Yes," said Mowgli, without turning his head, chuckling a

little.

"I am an old man. I did not know that thou wast anything  more than a herdsboy. May I rise up and go away, or will thy  servant tear me to pieces?"

"Go, and peace go with thee. Only, another time do not

meddle with my game. Let him go, Akela."

Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could, looking back over his shoulder in case Mowgli should change into something terrible.  When he got to the village he told a tale of magic and enchantment and sorcery that made the priest look very grave.

Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of the body.

"Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me

to herd them, Akela."

The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the village Mowgli saw lights, and heard the conches and bells in the temple blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by the gate. "That is because I have killed  Shere Khan," he said to himself. But a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the villagers shouted: "Sorcerer! Wolf's brat!  Jungle demon! Go away! Get hence quickly or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot, Buldeo, shoot!"

The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed in pain.

"More sorcery!" shouted the villagers. "He can turn bullets.

Buldeo, that was thy buffalo."

"Now what is this?" said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones

flew thicker.

"They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine," said  Akela, sitting down composedly. "It is in my head that, if bullets  mean anything, they would cast thee out."

"Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!" shouted the priest, waving a

sprig of the sacred tulsi plant.

"Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is

because I am a wolf. Let us go, Akela."

A woman—it was Messua—ran across to the herd, and cried:  "Oh, my son, my son! They say thou art a sorcerer who can turn himself into a beast at will. I do not believe, but go away or they will kill thee. Buldeo says thou art a wizard, but I know thou hast avenged Nathoo's death."

"Come back, Messua!" shouted the crowd. "Come back, or we

will  stone thee."

Mowgli laughed a little short ugly laugh, for a stone had hit him in the mouth. "Run back, Messua. This is one of the foolish tales they tell under the big tree at dusk. I have at least paid for thy son's life. Farewell; and run quickly, for  I shall send the herd in more swiftly than their brickbats. I am no wizard, Messua.  Farewell!"

"Now, once more, Akela," he cried. "Bring the herd in."

The buffaloes were anxious enough to get to the village. They hardly needed Akela's yell, but charged through the gate like a whirlwind, scattering the crowd right and left.

"Keep count!" shouted Mowgli scornfully. "It may be that I  have stolen one of them.

Keep count, for I will do your herding  no more. Fare you well, children of men, and thank Messua that  I do not come in with my wolves and hunt you up and down  your street."

He turned on his heel and walked away with the Lone Wolf, and as he looked up at the stars he felt happy. "No more sleeping in traps for me, Akela. Let us get Shere Khan's skin and

go away. No, we will not hurt the village, for Messua was kind

to me."

When the moon rose over the plain, making it look all milky, the horrified villagers saw Mowgli, with two wolves at his heels and a bundle on his head, trotting across at the steady wolf's trot that eats up the long miles like fire. Then they banged the temple bells and blew the conches louder than ever. And Messua cried, and Buldeo embroidered the story of his adventures in the jungle, till he ended by saying that Akela stood up on his  hind legs and talked like a man.

The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the two wolves came to the hill of the Council Rock, and they stopped at  Mother Wolf's cave.

"They have cast me out from the Man-Pack, Mother," shouted  Mowgli, "but I come with the hide of Shere Khan to keep my  word."

Mother Wolf walked stiffly from the cave with the cubs behind

her, and her eyes glowed as she saw the skin.

"I told him on that day, when he crammed his head and  shoulders into this cave, hunting for thy life, Little Frog—I told  him that the hunter would be the hunted. It is well done."

"Little Brother, it is well done," said a deep voice in the  thicket. "We were lonely in the jungle without thee, and  Bagheera came running to Mowgli's bare feet. They clambered

up the Council Rock together, and Mowgli spread the skin out  on the flat stone where Akela used to sit, and pegged it down

with four slivers of bamboo, and Akela lay down upon it, and  called the old call to the Council, 'Look—look well, O Wolves,'  exactly as he had called when Mowgli was first brought there."

Ever since Akela had been deposed, the Pack had been without a leader, hunting and fighting at their own pleasure. But they answered the call from habit; and some of them were lame from the traps they had fallen into, and some limped from shot wounds, and some were mangy from eating bad food, and many were missing. But they came to the Council Rock, all that were left of them, and saw Shere Khan's striped hide on the rock, and the huge claws dangling at  the end of the empty dangling feet. It was then that Mowgli made up a song that came up into his throat all by itself, and he shouted it aloud, leaping up and down on the rattling skin, and beating time with his heels till he had no more breath left, while Gray Brother and Akela howled between the verses.

"Look well, O Wolves. Have I kept my word?" said Mowgli.

And the wolves bayed "Yes," and one tattered wolf howled:

"Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O Man-cub, for we be

sick of  this lawlessness, and we would be the Free People once

more."

"Nay," purred Bagheera, "that may not be. When ye are fullfed, the madness may come upon you again. Not for nothing are  ye called the Free People. Ye fought for freedom, and it is yours.  Eat it, O Wolves."

"Man-Pack and Wolf-Pack have cast me out," said Mowgli.

"Now I will hunt alone in the jungle."

"And we will hunt with thee," said the four cubs.

So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from that day on. But he was not always alone, because, years afterward, he became a man and married.

But that is a story for grown-ups.