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 today.'

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. I must tell Shere Khan who comes. We have him in
a 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 hun