never mean anything at
all; but one of them invented what seemed to him a brilliant idea, and
he told all the others that Mowgli would be a useful person to keep in
the tribe, because he could weave sticks together for protection from
the wind; so, if they caught him, they could make him teach them.
Of course Mowgli, as a woodcutter's child, inherited all sorts of
instincts, and used to make little huts of fallen branches without
thinking how he came to do it. The Monkey-People, watching in the trees,
considered his play most wonderful. This time, they said, they were
really going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the
jungle--so wise that everyone else would notice and envy them. Therefore
they followed Baloo and Bagheera and Mowgli through the jungle very
quietly till it was time for the midday nap, and Mowgli, who was
very much ashamed of himself, slept between the Panther and the Bear,
resolving to have no more to do with the Monkey People.

The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on his legs and
arms--hard, strong, little hands--and then a swash of branches in his
face, and then he was staring down through the swaying boughs as Baloo
woke the jungle with his deep cries and Bagheera bounded up the trunk
with every tooth bared. The Bandar-log howled with triumph and scuffled
away to the upper branches where Bagheera dared not follow, shouting:
"He has noticed us! Bagheera has noticed us. All the Jungle-People
admire us for our skill and our cunning." Then they began their flight;
and the flight of the Monkey-People through tree-land is one of
the things nobody can describe. They have their regular roads and
crossroads, up hills and down hills, all laid out from fifty to seventy
or a hundred feet above ground, and by these they can travel even at
night if necessary. Two of the strongest monkeys caught Mowgli under
the arms and swung off with him through the treetops, twenty feet at a
bound. Had they been alone they could have gone twice as fast, but the
boy's weight held them back. Sick and giddy as Mowgli was he could not
help enjoying the wild rush, though the glimpses of earth far down below
frightened him, and the terrible check and jerk at the end of the swing
over nothing but empty air brought his heart between his teeth. His
escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the thinnest topmost
branches crackle and bend under them, and then with a cough and a whoop
would fling themselves into t