i any more, but accepted him, as
the other Jungle People did, for the Master of the Jungle, and brought
him all the news that a python of his size would naturally hear. What
Kaa did not know about the Middle Jungle, as they call it,--the life
that runs close to the earth or under it, the boulder, burrow, and
the tree-bole life,--might have been written upon the smallest of his
scales.

That afternoon Mowgli was sitting in the circle of Kaa's great coils,
fingering the flaked and broken old skin that lay all looped and twisted
among the rocks just as Kaa had left it. Kaa had very courteously packed
himself under Mowgli's broad, bare shoulders, so that the boy was really
resting in a living arm-chair.

"Even to the scales of the eyes it is perfect," said Mowgli, under his
breath, playing with the old skin. "Strange to see the covering of one's
own head at one's own feet!"

"Ay, but I lack feet," said Kaa; "and since this is the custom of all
my people, I do not find it strange. Does thy skin never feel old and
harsh?"

"Then go I and wash, Flathead; but, it is true, in the great heats I
have wished I could slough my skin without pain, and run skinless."

"I wash, and ALSO I take off my skin. How looks the new coat?"

Mowgli ran his hand down the diagonal checkerings of the immense back.
"The Turtle is harder-backed, but not so gay," he said judgmatically.
"The Frog, my name-bearer, is more gay, but not so hard. It is very
beautiful to see--like the mottling in the mouth of a lily."

"It needs water. A new skin never comes to full colour before the first
bath. Let us go bathe."

"I will carry thee," said Mowgli; and he stooped down, laughing, to
lift the middle section of Kaa's great body, just where the barrel was
thickest. A man might just, as well have tried to heave up a two-foot
water-main; and Kaa lay still, puffing with quiet amusement. Then the
regular evening game began--the Boy in the flush of his great strength,
and the Python in his sumptuous new skin, standing up one against the
other for a wrestling match--a trial of eye and strength. Of course,
Kaa could have crushed a dozen Mowglis if he had let himself go; but he
played carefully, and never loosed one-tenth of his power. Ever since
Mowgli was strong enough to endure a little rough handling, Kaa had
taught him this game, and it suppled his limbs as nothing else could.
Sometimes Mowgli would stand lapped almost to his throat in Kaa's
shifting coils