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When he was not learning he sat out in the sun and slept, and ate and went to sleep again. Bagheera would lie out on a branch and call, "Come along, Little Brother," and at first Mowgli would cling like the sloth, but afterward he would fling himself through the branches almost as boldly as the gray ape.
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?
As the sun rose it changed into bubbling seas of red gold, churned off, and let the low rays stripe the dried grass on which Mowgli and Bagheera were resting. It was the end of the cold weather, the leaves and the trees looked worn and faded, and there was a dry, ticking rustle everywhere when the wind blew.
"Does Man trap Man?" said Bagheera. "So he says. I cannot understand the talk. They are all mad together. What have Messua and her man to do with me that they should be put in a trap; and what is all this talk about the Red Flower? I must look to this. Whatever they would do to Messua they will not do till Buldeo returns.
It was then that Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin, and in despair gave the Snake's Call for protection "We be of one blood, ye and I" for he believed that Kaa had turned tail at the last minute. Even Baloo, half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he heard the Black Panther asking for help.
He is not of our tribe, being footless and with most evil eyes," said Bagheera. "He is very old and very cunning. Above all, he is always hungry," said Baloo hopefully. "Promise him many goats." "He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be asleep now, and even were he awake what if he would rather kill his own goats?"
He has broken no word of the Law of the Jungle." "Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Bagheera's honor is something that he will perhaps fight for," said Bagheera in his gentlest voice. "A bull paid ten years ago!" the Pack snarled. "What do we care for bones ten years old?"
And the answer is, "Hunt then for food, but not for pleasure." All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn by heart, and he grew very tired of saying the same thing over a hundred times. But, as Baloo said to Bagheera, one day when Mowgli had been cuffed and run off in a temper, "A man's cub is a man's cub, and he must learn all the Law of the Jungle."
"He will be rested before he picks it up again," said Bagheera coolly, as he slipped round a tree-trunk, in the game of blindman's-buff that they were playing. "NOW, what does the lean thing do?" "Eat or blow smoke out of his mouth.
"I will remember. But he has done mischief, and blows must be dealt now. Mowgli, hast thou anything to say?" "Nothing. I did wrong. Baloo and thou are wounded. It is just." When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself up without a word. "Now," said Bagheera, "jump on my back, Little Brother, and we will go home." One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores.
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