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Mowgli's voice answered him not fifty yards to the right. "Um!" said the Panther, with a deep cough. "The two run side by side, drawing nearer!" They raced on another half-mile, always keeping about the same distance, till Mowgli, whose head was not so close to the ground as Bagheera's, cried: "They have met. Good hunting look!
It was one very warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera born of something that he had heard. Perhaps Ikki the Porcupine had told him; but he said to Mowgli when they were deep in the jungle, as the boy lay with his head on Bagheera's beautiful black skin, "Little Brother, how often have I told thee that Shere Khan is thy enemy?"
Was I to lose my self-respect also? Was I to run a beaten man from this peril, after standing against my enemy so long? Should I not rather stand on this my ground where I was not the "lame feller"? Down by the lake, the snarling cry of a terrified cat broke the night stillness. It was Bagheera's voice.
The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his feet behind, clapped his hands together to applaud himself, and jumped on to Bagheera's back, where he sat sideways, drumming with his heels on the glossy skin and making the worst faces he could think of at Baloo. "There there! That was worth a little bruise," said the brown bear tenderly. "Some day thou wilt remember me."
Kaa was everything that the monkeys feared in the jungle, for none of them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look him in the face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug. And so they ran, stammering with terror, to the walls and the roofs of the houses, and Baloo drew a deep breath of relief. His fur was much thicker than Bagheera's, but he had suffered sorely in the fight.
Mowgli put up his strong brown hand, and just under Bagheera's silky chin, where the giant rolling muscles were all hid by the glossy hair, he came upon a little bald spot.
Mor cried the new smells, the other birds took it over, and from the rocks by the Waingunga he heard Bagheera's hoarse scream something between the scream of an eagle and the neighing of a horse.
Baloo's big paw scooped Mowgli off Bagheera's back, and as the boy lay between the big fore-paws he could see the Bear was angry. "Mowgli," said Baloo, "thou hast been talking with the Bandar-log the Monkey People." Mowgli looked at Bagheera to see if the Panther was angry too, and Bagheera's eyes were as hard as jade stones.
There is no nagging afterward. Mowgli laid his head down on Bagheera's back and slept so deeply that he never waked when he was put down in the home-cave. Road-Song of the Bandar-Log Here we go in a flung festoon, Half-way up to the jealous moon! Don't you envy our pranceful bands? Don't you wish you had extra hands? Wouldn't you like if your tails were so Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow?
"No one then is to be feared," Baloo wound up, patting his big furry stomach with pride. "Except his own tribe," said Bagheera, under his breath; and then aloud to Mowgli, "Have a care for my ribs, Little Brother! What is all this dancing up and down?" Mowgli had been trying to make himself heard by pulling at Bagheera's shoulder fur and kicking hard.
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