t to give the crowd a taste of what
was coming. Then he called for water.

"Bah!" said Mowgli. "Chatter--chatter! Talk, talk! Men are
blood-brothers of the Bandar-log. Now he must wash his mouth with water;
now he must blow smoke; and when all that is done he has still his story
to tell. They are very wise people--men. They will leave no one to guard
Messua till their ears are stuffed with Buldeo's tales. And--I grow as
lazy as they!"

He shook himself and glided back to the hut. Just as he was at the
window he felt a touch on his foot.

"Mother," said he, for he knew that tongue well, "what dost THOU here?"

"I heard my children singing through the woods, and I followed the one I
loved best. Little Frog, I have a desire to see that woman who gave thee
milk," said Mother Wolf, all wet with the dew.

"They have bound and mean to kill her. I have cut those ties, and she
goes with her man through the Jungle."

"I also will follow. I am old, but not yet toothless." Mother Wolf
reared herself up on end, and looked through the window into the dark of
the hut.

In a minute she dropped noiselessly, and all she said was: "I gave thee
thy first milk; but Bagheera speaks truth: Man goes to Man at the last."

"Maybe," said Mowgli, with a very unpleasant look on his face; "but
to-night I am very far from that trail. Wait here, but do not let her
see."

"THOU wast never afraid of ME, Little Frog," said Mother Wolf, backing
into the high grass, and blotting herself out, as she knew how.

"And now," said Mowgli cheerfully, as he swung into the hut again, "they
are all sitting round Buldeo, who is saying that which did not happen.
When his talk is finished, they say they will assuredly come here with
the Red--with fire and burn you both. And then?"

"I have spoken to my man," said Messua. "Khanhiwara is thirty miles from
here, but at Khanhiwara we may find the English--"

"And what Pack are they?" said Mowgli.

"I do not know. They be white, and it is said that they govern all
the land, and do not suffer people to burn or beat each other without
witnesses. If we can get thither to-night, we live. Otherwise we die."

"Live, then. No man passes the gates to-night. But what does HE do?"
Messua's husband was on his hands and knees digging up the earth in one
corner of the hut.

"It is his little money," said Messua. "We can take nothing else."

"Ah, yes. The stuff that passes from hand to hand and never grows
warmer. Do