Ch. 5: Letting in the Jungle - Page 2

ear--"but what if men do not
leave thee alone, Little Brother?"

"We be FIVE," said Gray Brother, looking round at the company,
and snapping his jaws on the last word.

"We also might attend to that hunting," said Bagheera, with a
little switch-switch of his tail, looking at Baloo. "But why
think of men now, Akela?"

"For this reason," the Lone Wolf answered: "when that yellow
chief's hide was hung up on the rock, I went back along our
trail to the village, stepping in my tracks, turning aside, and
lying down, to make a mixed trail in case one should follow us.
But when I had fouled the trail so that I myself hardly knew it
again, Mang, the Bat, came hawking between the trees, and hung
up above me. Said Mang, "The village of the Man-Pack, where they
cast out the Man-cub, hums like a hornet's nest."

"It was a big stone that I threw," chuckled Mowgli, who had often
amused himself by throwing ripe paw-paws into a hornet's
nest, and racing off to the nearest pool before the hornets
caught him.

"I asked of Mang what he had seen. He said that the Red Flower
blossomed at the gate of the village, and men sat about it
carrying guns. Now _I_ know, for I have good cause,"--Akela
looked down at the old dry scars on his flank and side,--"that
men do not carry guns for pleasure. Presently, Little Brother,
a man with a gun follows our trail--if, indeed, he be not
already on it."

"But why should he? Men have cast me out. What more do they
need?" said Mowgli angrily.

"Thou art a man, Little Brother," Akela returned. "It is not
for US, the Free Hunters, to tell thee what thy brethren do,
or why."

He had just time to snatch up his paw as the skinning-knife cut
deep into the ground below. Mowgli struck quicker than an
average human eye could follow but Akela was a wolf; and even a
dog, who is very far removed from the wild wolf, his ancestor,
can be waked out of deep sleep by a cart-wheel touching his
flank, and can spring away unharmed before that wheel comes on.

"Another time," Mowgli said quietly, returning the knife to its
sheath, "speak of the Man-Pack and of Mowgli in TWO breaths--
not one."

"Phff! That is a sharp tooth," said Akela, snuffing at the
blade's cut in the earth, "but living with the Man-Pack has
spoiled thine eye, Little Brother. I could have killed a buck
while thou wast striking."

Bagheera sprang to his feet, thrust up his head as far as he
could, sniffed, and stiffened through every curve in his body.
Gray Brother followed his example quickly, keeping a little
to