Jungle as though I were out wooing in the spring! Didst thou
not hear us?"

"I had other game afoot. Ask Buldeo if he liked the song. But
where are the Four? I do not wish one of the Man-Pack to leave
the gates to-night."

"What need of the Four, then?" said Bagheera, shifting from foot
to foot, his eyes ablaze, and purring louder than ever. "I can
hold them, Little Brother. Is it killing at last? The singing
and the sight of the men climbing up the trees have made me very
ready. Who is Man that we should care for him--the naked brown
digger, the hairless and toothless, the eater of earth? I have
followed him all day--at noon--in the white sunlight. I herded
him as the wolves herd buck. I am Bagheera! Bagheera! Bagheera!
As I dance with my shadow, so danced I with those men. Look!"
The great panther leaped as a kitten leaps at a dead leaf
whirling overhead, struck left and right into the empty air,
that sang under the strokes, landed noiselessly, and leaped
again and again, while the half purr, half growl gathered head
as steam rumbles in a boiler. "I am Bagheera--in the jungle--
in the night, and my strength is in me. Who shall stay my
stroke? Man-cub, with one blow of my paw I could beat thy head
flat as a dead frog in the summer!"

"Strike, then!" said Mowgli, in the dialect of the village, NOT
the talk of the Jungle, and the human words brought Bagheera to
a full stop, flung back on haunches that quivered under him, his
head just at the level of Mowgli's. Once more Mowgli stared, as
he had stared at the rebellious cubs, full into the beryl-green