[This is the song that Chil sang as the kites dropped down one after another to the river-bed, when the great fight was finished. Chil is good friends with everybody, but he is a cold-blooded kind of creature at heart, because he knows that almost everybody in the Jungle comes to him in the long run.] These were my companions going forth by night-- (_For Chil! Look you, for Chil!_) Now come I to whistle them the ending of the fight. (_Chil! Vanguards of Chil!_) Word they gave me overhead of quarry newly slain, Word I gave them underfoot of buck upon the plain. Here's an end of every trail--they shall not speak again! They that called the hunting-cry--they that followed fast-- (_For Chil! Look you, for Chil!_) They that bade the sambhur wheel, and pinned him as he passed-- (_Chil! Vanguards of Chil!_) They that lagged behind the scent--they that ran before, They that shunned the level horn--they that overbore. Here's an end of every trail--they shall not follow more. These were my companions. Pity 'twas they died! (_For Chil! Look you, for Chil!_) Now come I to comfort them that knew them in their pride. (_Chil! Vanguards of Chil!_) Tattered flank and sunken eye, open mouth and red, Locked and lank and lone they lie, the dead upon their dead. Here's an end of every trail--and here my hosts are fed! THE SPRING RUNNING Man goes to Man! Cry the challenge through the Jungle! He that was our Brother goes away. Hear, now, and judge, O ye People of the Jungle,-- Answer, who shall turn him--who shall stay? Man goes to Man! He is weeping in the Jungle: He that was our Brother sorrows sore! Man goes to Man! (Oh, we loved him in the Jungle!) To the Man-Trail where we may not follow more. [Illustration] THE SPRING RUNNING The second year after the great fight with Red Dog and the death of Akela, Mowgli must have been nearly seventeen years old. He looked older, for hard exercise, the best of good eating, and baths whenever he felt in the least hot or dusty, had given him strength and growth far beyond his age. He could swing by one hand from a top branch for half an hour at a time, when he had occasion to look along the tree-roads. He could stop a young buck in mid-gallop and throw him sideways by the head. He could even jerk over the big, blue wild boars that lived in the Marshes of the North. The Jungle People who used to fear him for his wits feared him now for his strength, and when he moved quietly on his own affairs the mere whisper of his coming cleared the wood-paths. And yet the look in his eyes was always gentle. Even when he fought, his eyes never blazed as Bagheera's did. They only grew more and more interested and excited; and that was one of the things that Bagheera himself did not understand.