"The dhole, the dhole of the Dekkan--Red Dog, the Killer!
They came north from the south saying the Dekkan was empty and killing out by the way. When this moon was new there were four to me--my mate and three cubs. She would teach them to kill on the grass plains, hiding to drive the buck, as we do who are of the open. At midnight I heard them together, full tongue on the trail. At the dawn-wind I found them stiff in the grass--four, Free People, four when this moon was new. Then sought I my Blood-Right and found the dhole.""How many?" said Mowgli quickly; the Pack growled deep in their throats.
"I do not know. Three of them will kill no more, but at the last they drove me like the buck; on my three legs they drove me.
Look, Free People!"
He thrust out his mangled fore-foot, all dark with dried blood.
There were cruel bites low down on his side, and his throat was torn and worried.
"Eat," said Akela, rising up from the meat Mowgli had brought him, and the Outlier flung himself on it.
"This shall be no loss," he said humbly, when he had taken off the first edge of his hunger. "Give me a little strength, Free People, and I also will kill. My lair is empty that was full when this moon was new, and the Blood Debt is not all paid."Phao heard his teeth crack on a haunch-bone and grunted approvingly.
"We shall need those jaws," said he. "Were there cubs with the dhole?""Nay, nay. 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. Though they are not as big nor half as cunning as the wolf, they are very strong and very numerous. The dhole, for instance, do not begin to call themselves a pack till they are a hundred strong; whereas forty wolves make a very fair pack indeed. Mowgli's wanderings had taken him to the edge of the high grassy downs of the Dekkan, and he had seen the fearless dholes sleeping and playing and scratching themselves in the little hollows and tussocks that they use for lairs. He despised and hated them because they did not smell like the Free People, because they did not live in caves, and, above all, because they had hair between their toes while he and his friends were clean-footed. But he knew, for Hathi had told him, what a terrible thing a dhole hunting-pack was. Even Hathi moves aside from their line, and until they are killed, or till game is scarce, they will go forward.
Akela knew something of the dholes, too, for he said to Mowgli quietly, "It is better to die in a Full Pack than leaderless and alone. This is good hunting, and--my last. But, as men live, thou hast very many more nights and days, Little Brother.
Go north and lie down, and if any live after the dhole has gone by he shall bring thee word of the fight.""Ah," said Mowgli, quite gravely, "must I go to the marshes and catch little fish and sleep in a tree, or must I ask help of the Bandar-log and crack nuts, while the Pack fight below?""It is to the death," said Akela. "Thou hast never met the dhole--the Red Killer. Even the Striped One----""Aowa! Aowa!" said Mowgli pettingly. "I have killed one striped ape, and sure am I in my stomach that Shere Khan would have left his own mate for meat to the dhole if he had winded a pack across three ranges. Listen now: There was a wolf, my father, and there was a wolf, my mother, and there was an old gray wolf (not too wise: he is white now) was my father and my mother.
Therefore I--" he raised his voice, "I say that when the dhole come, and if the dhole come, Mowgli and the Free People are of one skin for that hunting ; and I say, by the Bull that bought me--by the Bull Bagheera paid for me in the old days which ye of the Pack do not remember--_I_ say, that the Trees and the River may hear and hold fast if I forget; _I_ say that this my knife shall be as a tooth to the Pack--and I do not think it is so blunt. 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. But for YE, Free People, my word is that ye go north and eat but little for a while till the dhole are gone. There is no meat in this hunting.""Hear the Outlier!" said Mowgli with a laugh. Free People, we must go north and dig lizards and rats from the bank, lest by any chance we meet the dhole. He must kill out our hunting-grounds, while we lie hid in the north till it please him to give us our own again. He is a dog--and the pup of a dog--red, yellow-bellied, lairless, and haired between every toe!
He counts his cubs six and eight at the litter, as though he were Chikai, the little leaping rat. Surely we must run away, Free People, and beg leave of the peoples of the north for the offal of dead cattle! Ye know the saying: 'North are the vermin;south are the lice. WE are the Jungle.' Choose ye, O choose.
It is good hunting! For the Pack--for the Full Pack--for the lair and the litter; for the in-kill and the out-kill; for the mate that drives the doe and the little, little cub within the cave; it is met!--it is met!--it is met!"The Pack answered with one deep, crashing bark that sounded in the night like a big tree falling. "It is met!" they cried.
