e with foam, flung himself into the
circle and lay gasping at Mowgli's feet.

"Good hunting! Under whose Headship?" said Phao gravely.

"Good hunting! Won-tolla am I," was the answer. He meant that he was
a solitary wolf, fending for himself, his mate, and his cubs in
some lonely lair, as do many wolves in the south. Won-tolla means an
Outlier--one who lies out from any Pack. Then he panted, and they could
see his heart-beats shake him backward and forward.

"What moves?" said Phao, for that is the question all the Jungle asks
after the pheeal cries.

"The dhole, the dhole of the Dekkan--Red Dog, the Killer! They came
north from the south saying the Dekkan was empty and killing out by the
way. When this moon was new there were four to me--my mate and three
cubs. She would teach them to kill on the grass plains, hiding to
drive the buck, as we do who are of the open. At midnight I heard them
together, full tongue on the trail. At the dawn-wind I found them stiff
in the grass--four, Free People, four when this moon was new. Then
sought I my Blood-Right and found the dhole."

"How many?" said Mowgli quickly; the Pack growled deep in their throats.

"I do not know. Three of them will kill no more, but at the last they
drove me like the buck; on my three legs they drove me. Look, Free
People!"

He thrust out his mangled fore-foot, all dark with dried blood. There
were cruel bites low down on his side, and his throat was torn and
worried.

"Eat," said Akela, rising up from the meat Mowgli had brought him, and
the Outlier flung himself on it.

"This shall be no loss," he said humbly, when he had taken off the first
edge of his hunger. "Give me a little strength, Free People, and I also
will kill. My lair is empty that was full when this moon was new, and
the Blood Debt is not all paid."

Phao heard his teeth crack on a haunch-bone and grunted approvingly.

"We shall need those jaws," said he. "Were there cubs with the dhole?"

"Nay, nay. Red Hunters all: grown dogs of their Pack, heavy and strong
for all that they eat lizards in the Dekkan."

What Won-tolla had said meant that the dhole, the red hunting-dog of the
Dekkan, was moving to kill, and the Pack knew well that even the tiger
will surrender a new kill to the dhole. They drive straight through the
Jungle, and what they meet they pull down and tear to pieces. Though
they are not as big nor half as cunning as the wolf, they are very
strong and very numerou