ting yell, and they pitched over one after
the other just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting
up round them. Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and
before they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Shere
Khan and bellowed.

'Ha! Ha!' said Mowgli, on his back. 'Now thou knowest!' and the
torrent of black horns, foaming muzzles, and staring eyes whirled
down the ravine just as boulders go down in flood-time; the weaker
buffaloes being shouldered out to the sides of the ravine where they
tore through the creepers. They knew what the business was before
them--the terrible charge of the buffalo herd against which no tiger
can hope to stand. Shere Khan heard the thunder of their hoofs,
picked himself up and lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to
side for some way of escape, but the walls of the ravine were
straight and he had to hold on, heavy with his dinner and drink,
willing to do anything rather than fight. The herd splashed through
the pool he had just left, bellowing till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli
heard an answering bellow from the foot of the ravine, saw Shere Khan
turn (the tiger knew if the worst came to the worst it was better to
meet the bulls than the cows with their calves), and then Rama
tripped, and stumbled, and went on again over something soft, and,
with the bulls at his heels, crashed full into the other herd, while
the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their feet by the shock of
the meeting. That charge carried both herds out into the plain,
goring and stamping and snorting. Mowgli watched his time, and
slipped off Rama's neck, laying about right and left with his stick.

'Quick, Akela! Break them up. Scatter them, or they will be fighting
one another. Drive them away, Akela. _Hai_, Rama! _Hai! hai! hai!_ my
children. Softly now, softly! It is all over.'

Akela and Gray Brother ran to and fro nipping the buffaloes' legs,
and though the herd wheeled once to charge up the ravine again,
Mowgli managed to turn Rama, and the others followed him to the
wallows.

Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the kites were
coming for him already.

'Brothers, that was a dog's death,' said Mowgli, feeling for the
knife he always carried in a sheath round his neck now that he lived
with men. 'But he would never have shown fight. _Wallah!_ his hide
will look well on the Council Rock. We must get to work swiftly.'

A boy trained among men would n