EPISODE: 6.

"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.

"Thou hast been with the Monkey People—the gray apes—the

people without a law—the eaters of everything. That is great

shame."

"When Baloo hurt my head," said Mowgli (he was still on his

back), "I went away, and the gray apes came down from the

trees and had pity on me. No one else cared." He snuffled a

little.

"The pity of the Monkey People!" Baloo snorted. "The stillness

of the mountain stream! The cool of the summer sun! And then,

man-cub?"

"And then, and then, they gave me nuts and pleasant things to

eat, and they—they carried me in their arms up to the top of the

trees and said I was their blood brother except that I had no tail,

and should be their leader some day."

"They have no leader," said Bagheera. "They lie. They have

always lied."

"They were very kind and bade me come again. Why have I

never been taken among the Monkey People? They stand on

their feet as I do. They do not hit me with their hard paws. They

play all day. Let me get up! Bad Baloo, let me up! I will play

with them again."

"Listen, man-cub," said the Bear, and his voice rumbled like

thunder on a hot night. "I have taught thee all the Law of the

Jungle for all the peoples of the jungle—except the Monkey-Folk

who live in the trees. They have no law. They are outcasts. They

have no speech of their own, but use the stolen words which

they overhear when they listen, and peep, and wait up above in

the branches. Their way is not our way. They are without

leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in

the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter

and all is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with

them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go

where the monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt; we do

not die where they die. Hast thou ever heard me speak of the

Bandar-log till today?"

"No," said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still

now Baloo had finished.

"The Jungle-People put them out of their mouths and out of

their minds. They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless, and they

desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the Jungle

People. But we do not notice them even when they throw nuts

and filth on our heads."

He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs

spattered down through the branches; and they could hear

coughings and howlings and angry jumpings high up in the air

among the thin branches.

"The Monkey-People are forbidden," said Baloo, "forbidden to

the Jungle-People. Remember."

"Forbidden," said Bagheera, "but I still think Baloo should have

warned thee against them."

"I—I? How was I to guess he would play with such dirt. The

Monkey People! Faugh!"

A fresh shower came down on their heads and the two trotted

away, taking Mowgli with them. What Baloo had said about the

monkeys was perfectly true. They belonged to the tree-tops, and

as beasts very seldom look up, there was no occasion for the

monkeys and the Jungle-People to cross each other's path. But

whenever they found a sick wolf, or a wounded tiger, or bear,

the monkeys would torment him, and would throw sticks and

nuts at any beast for fun and in the hope of being noticed. Then

they would howl and shriek senseless songs, and invite the

Jungle-People to climb up their trees and fight them, or would start furious battles over nothing among themselves, and leave

the dead monkeys where the Jungle-People could see them. They

were always just going to have a leader, and laws and customs

of their own, but they never did, because their memories would

not hold over from day to day, and so they compromised things

by making up a saying, "What the Bandar-log think now the

jungle will think later," and that comforted them a great deal.

None of the beasts could reach them, but on the other hand

none of the beasts would notice them, and that was why they

were so pleased when Mowgli came to play with them, and they

heard how angry Baloo was.

They never meant to do any more—the Bandar-log never mean

anything at all; but one of them invented what seemed to him a

brilliant idea, and he told all the others that Mowgli would be a

useful person to keep in the tribe, because he could weave sticks

together for protection from the wind; so, if they caught him,

they could make him teach them. Of course Mowgli, as a

woodcutter's child, inherited all sorts of instincts, and used to

make little huts of fallen branches without thinking how he came

to do it. The Monkey-People, watching in the trees, considered

his play most wonderful. This time, they said, they were really

going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the

jungle—so wise that everyone else would notice and envy them.

Therefore they followed Baloo and Bagheera and Mowgli through

the jungle very quietly till it was time for the midday nap, and

Mowgli, who was very much ashamed of himself, slept between

the Panther and the Bear, resolving to have no more to do with

the Monkey People.

The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on his legs

and arms—hard, strong, little hands—and then a swash of

branches in his face, and then he was staring down through the

swaying boughs as Baloo woke the jungle with his deep cries and

Bagheera bounded up the trunk with every tooth bared. The

Bandar-log howled with triumph and scuffled away to the upper

branches where Bagheera dared not follow, shouting: "He has

noticed us! Bagheera has noticed us. All the Jungle-People

admire us for our skill and our cunning." Then they began their flight; and the flight of the Monkey-People through tree-land is

one of the things nobody can describe. They have their regular

roads and crossroads, up hills and down hills, all laid out from

fifty to seventy or a hundred feet above ground, and by these

they can travel even at night if necessary. Two of the strongest

monkeys caught Mowgli under the arms and swung off with him

through the treetops, twenty feet at a bound. Had they been

alone they could have gone twice as fast, but the boy's weight

held them back. Sick and giddy as Mowgli was he could not help

enjoying the wild rush, though the glimpses of earth far down

below frightened him, and the terrible check and jerk at the end

of the swing over nothing but empty air brought his heart

between his teeth. His escort would rush him up a tree till he

felt the thinnest topmost branches crackle and bend under them,

and then with a cough and a whoop would fling themselves into

the air outward and downward, and bring up, hanging by their

hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the next tree.

Sometimes he could see for miles and miles across the still green

jungle, as a man on the top of a mast can see for miles across

the sea, and then the branches and leaves would lash him across

the face, and he and his two guards would be almost down to

earth again. So, bounding and crashing and whooping and

yelling, the whole tribe of Bandar-log swept along the tree-roads

with Mowgli their prisoner.

For a time he was afraid of being dropped. Then he grew

angry but knew better than to struggle, and then he began to

think. The first thing was to send back word to Baloo and

Bagheera, for, at the pace the monkeys were going, he knew his

friends would be left far behind. It was useless to look down, for

he could only see the topsides of the branches, so he stared

upward and saw, far away in the blue, Rann the Kite balancing

and wheeling as he kept watch over the jungle waiting for things

to die. Rann saw that the monkeys were carrying something, and

dropped a few hundred yards to find out whether their load was

good to eat. He whistled with surprise when he saw Mowgli

being dragged up to a treetop and heard him give the Kite call

for—"We be of one blood, thou and I." The waves of the branches closed over the boy, but Chil balanced away to the next

tree in time to see the little brown face come up again. "Mark

my trail!" Mowgli shouted. "Tell Baloo of the Seeonee Pack and

Bagheera of the Council Rock."

"In whose name, Brother?" Rann had never seen Mowgli

before, though of course he had heard of him.

"Mowgli, the Frog. Man-cub they call me! Mark my tra-il!"

The last words were shrieked as he was being swung through

the air, but Rann nodded and rose up till he looked no bigger

than a speck of dust, and there he hung, watching with his

telescope eyes the swaying of the treetops as Mowgli's escort

whirled along.

"They never go far," he said with a chuckle. "They never do

what they set out to do. Always pecking at new things are the

Bandar-log. This time, if I have any eye-sight, they have pecked

down trouble for themselves, for Baloo is no fledgling and

Bagheera can, as I know, kill more than goats."

So he rocked on his wings, his feet gathered up under him,

and waited.

Meantime, Baloo and Bagheera were furious with rage and

grief. Bagheera climbed as he had never climbed before, but the

thin branches broke beneath his weight, and he slipped down,

his claws full of bark.

"Why didst thou not warn the man-cub?" he roared to poor

Baloo, who had set off at a clumsy trot in the hope of overtaking

the monkeys. "What was the use of half slaying him with blows

if thou didst not warn him?"

"Haste! O haste! We—we may catch them yet!" Baloo panted.

"At that speed! It would not tire a wounded cow. Teacher of

the Law—cub-beater—a mile of that rolling to and fro would

burst thee open. Sit still and think! Make a plan. This is no tim....