Mysa
and pricking him with the point of his knife. The great dripping bull
broke out of his wallow like a shell exploding, while Mowgli laughed
till he sat down.

"Say now that the hairless wolf of the Seeonee Pack once herded thee,
Mysa," he called.

"Wolf! THOU?" the bull snorted, stamping in the mud. "All the jungle
knows thou wast a herder of tame cattle--such a man's brat as shouts in
the dust by the crops yonder. THOU of the Jungle! What hunter would have
crawled like a snake among the leeches, and for a muddy jest--a jackal's
jest--have shamed me before my cow? Come to firm ground, and I will--I
will..." Mysa frothed at the mouth, for Mysa has nearly the worst temper
of any one in the Jungle.

Mowgli watched him puff and blow with eyes that never changed. When
he could make himself heard through the pattering mud, he said: "What
Man-Pack lair here by the marshes, Mysa? This is new Jungle to me."

"Go north, then," roared the angry bull, for Mowgli had pricked him
rather sharply. "It was a naked cow-herd's jest. Go and tell them at the
village at the foot of the marsh."

"The Man-Pack do not love jungle-tales, nor do I think, Mysa, that a
scratch more or less on thy hide is any matter for a council. But I will
go and look at this village. Yes, I will go. Softly now. It is not every
night that the Master of the Jungle comes to herd thee."

He stepped out to the shivering ground on the edge of the marsh, well
knowing that Mysa would never charge over it and laughed, as he ran, to
think of the bull's anger.

"My strength is not altogether gone," he said. "It may be that the poison
is not to the bone. There is a star sitting low yonder." He looked at it
between his half-shut hands. "By the Bull that bought me, it is the Red
Flower--the Red Flower that I lay beside before--before I came even
to the first Seeonee Pack! Now that I have seen, I will finish the
running."

The marsh ended in a broad plain where a light twinkled. It was a long
time since Mowgli had concerned himself with the doings of men, but this
night the glimmer of the Red Flower drew him forward.

"I will look," said he, "as I did in the old days, and I will see how
far the Man-Pack has changed."

Forgetting that he was no longer in his own Jungle, where he could do
what he pleased, he trod carelessly through the dew-loaded grasses till
he came to the hut where the light stood. Three or four yelping dogs
gave tongue, for he was on the outsk