and again
the tiger carried off a man at twilight, within sight of the village
gates.

Mowgli, who naturally knew something about what they were talking of,
had to cover his face not to show that he was laughing, while Buldeo,
the Tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one wonderful
story to another, and Mowgli's shoulders shook.

Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried away Messua's
son was a ghost-tiger, and his body was inhabited by the ghost of a
wicked, old money-lender, who had died some years ago. 'And I know
that this is true,' he said, 'because Purun Dass always limped from
the blow that he got in a riot when his account-books were burned,
and the tiger that I speak of _he_ limps, too, for the tracks of his
pads are unequal.'

'True, true, that must be the truth,' said the graybeards, nodding
together.

'Are all these tales such cobwebs and moontalk?' said Mowgli. 'That
tiger limps because he was born lame, as every one 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 headman, 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; and 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; and the slaty-blue buffaloes, with