, or that they are gods to be worshiped. Then
evening comes and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber up out of
the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after the other,
and they all string across the gray plain back to the twinkling village
lights.

Day after day Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their wallows, and
day after day he would see Gray Brother's back a mile and a half away
across the plain (so he knew that Shere Khan had not come back), and day
after day he would lie on the grass listening to the noises round him,
and dreaming of old days in the jungle. If Shere Khan had made a false
step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the Waingunga, Mowgli would
have heard him in those long, still mornings.

At last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal place,
and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the dhk tree,
which was all covered with golden-red flowers. There sat Gray Brother,
every bristle on his back lifted.

"He has hidden for a month to throw thee off thy guard. He crossed the
ranges last night with Tabaqui, hot-foot on thy trail," said the Wolf,
panting.

Mowgli frowned. "I am not afraid of Shere Khan, but Tabaqui is very
cunning."

"Have no fear," said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little. "I met
Tabaqui in the dawn. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the kites, but
he told me everything before I broke his back. Shere Khan's plan is to
wait for thee at the village gate this evening--for thee and for no one
else. He is lying up now, in the big dry ravine of the Waingunga."

"Has he eaten today, or does he hunt empty?" said Mowgli, for the answer
meant life and death to him.

"He killed at dawn,--a pig,--and he has drunk too. Remember, Shere Khan
could never fast, even for the sake of revenge."

"Oh! Fool, fool! What a cub's cub it is! Eaten and drunk too, and he
thinks that I shall wait till he has slept! Now, where does he lie up?
If there were but ten of us we might pull him down as he lies. These
buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him, and I cannot speak their
language. Can we get behind his track so that they may smell it?"

"He swam far down the Waingunga to cut that off," said Gray Brother.

"Tabaqui told him that, I know. He would never have thought of it
alone." Mowgli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking. "The big
ravine of the Waingunga. That opens out on the plain not half a mile
from here. I can take