The Jungle Book

Description

Out!’ snapped Father Wolf. ‘Out and chase with thy ace. Thou hast done damage enough for one night.’

‘I go,’ said Tabaqui discreetly. ‘Ye can hear Shere Khan beneath in the shrubberies. I may have spared myself the message.’

Father Wolf tuned in, and underneath in the valley that got down to a little waterway he heard the dry, furious, snarly, repetitious cry of a tiger who has discovered nothing and couldn’t care less if all the wilderness knows it.

‘The bonehead!’ said Father Wolf. ‘To start a night’s work with that clamor! Does he believe that our buck resemble his fat Waingunga bullocks?’

‘H’sh. It is neither bullock nor buck he chases to-night,’ said Mother Wolf. ‘It is Man.’

The cry had changed to such a murmuring murmur that appeared to originate from each quarter of the compass. It was the commotion that puzzles woodcutters and wanderers resting in the open, and makes them run now and then into the very mouth of the tiger.