"Well spoken, little bud-horn," Bagheera purred. "When the Truce ends that shall be remembered in thy favor," and he looked keenly through the darkness to make sure of recognizing the fawn again.
Gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking-places. One could hear the scuffling, snorting pig asking for more room; the buffaloes grunting among themselves as they lurched out across the sand-bars, and the deer telling pitiful stories of their long foot-sore wanderings in quest of food. Now and again they asked some question of the Eaters of Flesh across the river, but all the news was bad, and the roaring hot wind of the Jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling branches, and scattered twigs and dust on the water.
"The men-folk, too, they die beside their plows," said a young sambhur. "I passed three between sunset and night. They lay still, and their bullocks with them. We also shall lie still in a little."
"The river has fallen since last night," said Baloo. "O Hathi, hast thou ever seen the like of this drought?"
"It will pass, it will pass," said Hathi, squirting water along his back and sides.
"We have one here that cannot endure long," said Baloo; and he looked toward the boy he loved.
"I?" said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. "I have no long fur to cover my bones, but—but if thy hide were taken off, Baloo—"
Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely:
"Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law. Never have I been seen without my hide."
"Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were, like the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now that brown husk of thine—" Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera put out a paddy paw and pulled him over backward into the water.