and gold,
cried it aloud all along the misty woods, and Mowgli opened his mouth to
send on the cry, the words choked between his teeth, and a feeling came
over him that began at his toes and ended in his hair--a feeling of pure
unhappiness, so that he looked himself over to be sure that he had not
trod on a thorn. Mor cried the new smells, the other birds took it
over, and from the rocks by the Waingunga he heard Bagheera's hoarse
scream--something between the scream of an eagle and the neighing of
a horse. There was a yelling and scattering of Bandar-log in the
new-budding branches above, and there stood Mowgli, his chest, filled to
answer Mor, sinking in little gasps as the breath was driven out of it
by this unhappiness.

He stared all round him, but he could see no more than the mocking
Bandar-log scudding through the trees, and Mor, his tail spread in full
splendour, dancing on the slopes below.

"The smells have changed," screamed Mor. "Good hunting, Little Brother!
Where is thy answer?"

"Little Brother, good hunting!" whistled Chil the Kite and his mate,
swooping down together. The two baffed under Mowgli's nose so close that
a pinch of downy white feathers brushed away.

A light spring rain--elephant-rain they call it--drove across the Jungle
in a belt half a mile wide, left the new leaves wet and nodding behind,
and died out in a double rainbow and a light roll of thunder. The spring
hum broke out for a minute, and was silent, but all the Jungle Folk
seemed to be giving tongue at once. All except Mowgli.

"I have eaten good food," he said to himself. "I have drunk good
water. Nor does my throat burn and grow small, as it did when I bit the
blue-spotted root that Oo the Turtle said was clean food. But my stomach
is heavy, and I have given very bad talk to Bagheera and others, people
of the Jungle and my people. Now, too, I am hot and now I am cold, and
now I am neither hot nor cold, but angry with that which I cannot see.
Huhu! It is time to make a running! To-night I will cross the ranges;
yes, I will make a spring running to the Marshes of the North, and back
again. I have hunted too easily too long. The Four shall come with me,
for they grow as fat as white grubs."

He called, but never one of the Four answered. They were far beyond
earshot, singing over the spring songs--the Moon and Sambhur Songs--with
the wolves of the pack; for in the spring-time the Jungle People make
very little difference betwe