ck sadly. However, he
dampened his finger, rubbed it on his nose, and stood erect to catch the
upper scent, which, though it is the faintest, is the truest.

"Man!" Akela growled, dropping on his haunches.

"Buldeo!" said Mowgli, sitting down. "He follows our trail, and yonder
is the sunlight on his gun. Look!"

It was no more than a splash of sunlight, for a fraction of a second,
on the brass clamps of the old Tower musket, but nothing in the Jungle
winks with just that flash, except when the clouds race over the sky.
Then a piece of mica, or a little pool, or even a highly-polished leaf
will flash like a heliograph. But that day was cloudless and still.

"I knew men would follow," said Akela triumphantly. "Not for nothing
have I led the Pack."

The four cubs said nothing, but ran down hill on their bellies, melting
into the thorn and under-brush as a mole melts into a lawn.

"Where go ye, and without word?" Mowgli called.

"H'sh! We roll his skull here before mid-day!" Gray Brother answered.

"Back! Back and wait! Man does not eat Man!" Mowgli shrieked.

"Who was a wolf but now? Who drove the knife at me for thinking he might
be Man?" said Akela, as the four wolves turned back sullenly and dropped
to heel.

"Am I to give reason for all I choose to, do?" said Mowgli furiously.

"That is Man! There speaks Man!" Bagheera muttered under his whiskers.
"Even so did men talk round the King's cages at Oodeypore. We of the
Jungle know that Man is wisest of all. If we trusted our ears we should
know that of all things he is most foolish." Raising his voice, he
added, "The Man-cub is right in this. Men hunt in packs. To kill one,
unless we know what the others will do, is bad hunting. Come, let us see
what this Man means toward us."

"We will not come," Gray Brother growled. "Hunt alone, Little Brother.
WE know our own minds. The skull would have been ready to bring by now."

Mowgli had been looking from one to the other of his friends, his chest
heaving and his eyes full of tears. He strode forward to the wolves,
and, dropping on one knee, said: "Do I not know my mind? Look at me!"

They looked uneasily, and when their eyes wandered, he called them back
again and again, till their hair stood up all over their bodies, and
they trembled in every limb, while Mowgli stared and stared.

"Now," said he, "of us five, which is leader?"

"Thou art leader, Little Brother," said Gray Brother, and he licked
Mowgli's foot.