"Now this same Manling comes with soft, tickling words to this same Flathead, telling him that he is wise and strong and beautiful, and this same old Flathead believes and makes a place, thus, for this same stone-throwing Manling, and--. Art thou at ease now? Could Bagheera give thee so good a resting-place?" Kaa had, as usual, made a sort of soft, half-hammock of himself under Mowgli's weight. The boy reached out in the darkness, and gathered in the supple cable-like neck till Kaa's head rested on his shoulder, and then he told him all that had happened in the Jungle that night. "Wise I may be," said Kaa at the end; "but deaf I surely am. Else I should have heard the _pheeal_. Small wonder the Eaters of Grass are uneasy. How many be the dhole?" "I have not yet seen. I came hot-foot to thee. Thou art older than Hathi. But oh, Kaa,"--here Mowgli wriggled with sheer joy,--"it will be good hunting. Few of us will see another moon." "Dost _thou_ strike in this? Remember thou art a Man; and remember what Pack cast thee out. Let the Wolf look to the Dog. Thou art a Man." "Last year's nuts are this year's black earth," said Mowgli. "It is true that I am a Man, but it is in my stomach that this night I have said that I am a Wolf. I called the River and the Trees to remember. I am of the Free People, Kaa, till the dhole has gone by." "Free People," Kaa grunted. "Free thieves! And thou hast tied thyself into the death-knot for the sake of the memory of the dead wolves? This is no good hunting." "It is my Word which I have spoken. The Trees know, the River knows. Till the dhole have gone by my Word comes not back to me." "_Ngssh!_ This changes all trails. I had thought to take thee away with me to the northern marshes, but the Word--even the Word of a little, naked, hairless manling--is the Word. Now I, Kaa, say--" "Think well, Flathead, lest thou tie thyself into the death-knot also. I need no Word from thee, for well I know--" "Be it so, then," said Kaa. "I will give no Word; but what is in thy stomach to do when the dhole come?" "They must swim the Waingunga. I thought to meet them with my knife in the shallows, the Pack behind me; and so stabbing and thrusting we a little might turn them down-stream, or cool their throats." "The dhole do not turn and their throats are hot," said Kaa. "There will be neither Manling nor Wolf-cub when that hunting is done, but only dry bones." "_Alala!_ If we die, we die. It will be most good hunting. But my stomach is young, and I have not seen many Rains. I am not wise nor strong. Hast thou a better plan, Kaa?" "I have seen a hundred and a hundred Rains. Ere Hathi cast his milk-tushes my trail was big in the dust. By the First Egg I am older than many trees, and I have seen all that the Jungle has done." "But _this_ is new hunting," said Mowgli. "Never before have the dhole crossed our trail."