"What more can I wish? I have the Jungle, and the favor of the Jungle! Is there more anywhere between sunrise and sunset?"
"Now, the Cobra said—" Kaa began.
"What cobra? He that went away just now said nothing. He was hunting."
"It was another."
"Hast thou many dealings with the Poison People? I give them their own path. They carry death in the fore-tooth, and that is not good—for they are so small. But what hood is this thou hast spoken with?"
Kaa rolled slowly in the water like a steamer in a beam sea. "Three or four moons since," said he, "I hunted in Cold Lairs, which place thou hast not forgotten. And the thing I hunted fled shrieking past the tanks and to that house whose side I once broke for thy sake, and ran into the ground."
"But the people of Cold Lairs do not live in burrows." Mowgli knew that Kaa was talking of the Monkey People.
"This thing was not living, but seeking to live," Kaa replied, with a quiver of his tongue. "He ran into a burrow that led very far. I followed, and having killed, I slept. When I waked I went forward."
"Under the earth?"