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
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