s 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 worshipped.
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
_dhak_-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 to-day, 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 sle