with his
feet.

"Well spoken, little bud-horn," Bagheera purred. "When the Truce ends
that shall be remembered in thy favour," and he looked keenly through
the darkness to make sure of recognising the fawn again.

Gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking-places. One could
hear the scuffling, snorting pig asking for more room; the buffaloes
grunting among themselves as they lurched out across the sand-bars, and
the deer telling pitiful stories of their long foot-sore wanderings in
quest of food. Now and again they asked some question of the Eaters of
Flesh across the river, but all the news was bad, and the roaring hot
wind of the Jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling
branches, and scattered twigs, and dust on the water.

"The men-folk, too, they die beside their ploughs," said a young
sambhur. "I passed three between sunset and night. They lay still, and
their Bullocks with them. We also shall lie still in a little."

"The river has fallen since last night," said Baloo. "O Hathi, hast thou
ever seen the like of this drought?"

"It will pass, it will pass," said Hathi, squirting water along his back
and sides.

"We have one here that cannot endure long," said Baloo; and he looked
toward the boy he loved.

"I?" said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. "I have no long
fur to cover my bones, but--but if THY hide were taken off, Baloo----"

Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely:

"Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law. Never have I
been seen without my hide."

"Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were, like
the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now that
brown husk of thine----" Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and explaining
things with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera put out a
paddy paw and pulled him over backward into the water.

"Worse and worse," said the Black Panther, as the boy rose spluttering.
"First Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut. Be careful that
he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do."

"And what is that?" said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute, though
that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle.

"Break thy head," said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again.

"It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher," said the bear, when
Mowgli had been ducked for the third time.

"Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing runnin