United States or Bouvet Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He meant that he was a solitary wolf, fending for himself, his mate, and his cubs in some lonely lair, as do many wolves in the south. Won-tolla means an Outlier one who lies out from any Pack. Then he panted, and they could see his heart-beats shake him backward and forward. "What moves?" said Phao, for that is the question all the Jungle asks after the pheeal cries.
"And thus do we do in the Jungle," said Mowgli. Won-tolla said not a word, only his jaws were closing and closing on the backbone as his life ebbed. The dhole shuddered, his head dropped, and he lay still, and Won-tolla dropped above him. "Huh! The Blood Debt is paid," said Mowgli. "Sing the song, Won-tolla." "He hunts no more," said Gray Brother; "and Akela, too, is silent this long time."
This is my Word which has gone from me." "Thou dost not know the dhole, man with a wolf's tongue," said Won-tolla. "I look only to clear the Blood Debt against them ere they have me in many pieces. They move slowly, killing out as they go, but in two days a little strength will come back to me and I turn again for the Blood Debt.
A wolf came running along the bank on three legs, leaping up and down, laying his head sideways close to the ground, hunching his back, and breaking high into the air, as though he were playing with his cubs. It was Won-tolla, the Outlier, and he said never a word, but continued his horrible sport beside the dholes.
Red Hunters all: grown dogs of their Pack, heavy and strong for all that they eat lizards in the Dekkan." What Won-tolla had said meant that the dhole, the red hunting-dog of the Dekkan, was moving to kill, and the Pack knew well that even the tiger will surrender a new kill to the dhole. They drive straight through the Jungle, and what they meet they pull down and tear to pieces.
"Good hunting!" said Mowgli, as he rose boldly at the brute's side, and sent the long knife home behind the shoulder, pushing hard to avoid his dying snap. "Art thou there, Man-cub?" said Won-tolla across the water. "Ask of the dead, Outlier," Mowgli replied. "Have none come down-stream?
They heard tired feet on the rocks, and a gaunt wolf, streaked with red on his flanks, his right fore-paw useless, and his jaws white with foam, flung himself into the circle and lay gasping at Mowgli's feet. "Good hunting! Under whose Headship?" said Phao gravely. "Good hunting! Won-tolla am I," was the answer.
The bank was lined with burning eyes, and except for the horrible pheeal that had never stopped since sundown, there was no sound in the Jungle. It seemed as though Won-tolla were fawning on them to come ashore; and "Turn and take hold!" said the leader of the dholes.
Won-tolla was fearfully punished, but his grip had paralysed the dhole, who could not turn round and reach him. "By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli, with a bitter laugh, "it is the tailless one!" And indeed it was the big bay-coloured leader.
I have filled these dogs' mouths with dirt; I have tricked them in the broad daylight, and their leader lacks his tail, but here be some few for thee still. Whither shall I drive them?" "I will wait," said Won-tolla. "The night is before me." Nearer and nearer came the bay of the Seeonee wolves.
Word Of The Day