He did not wait for anything more, but dashed on; and the yells grew fainter behind him as he ran into the croplands where the villagers lived. "Bagheera spoke truth," he panted, as he nestled down in some cattle fodder by the window of a hut. "To-morrow will decide what happens both for Akela and for me." Then he pressed his face close to the window and watched the fire on the hearth. He saw the husbandman's wife get up and feed it in the night with black lumps. And when the morning came and the mists were all white and cold, he saw the man's child pick up a wicker pot plastered inside with earth, fill it with lumps of red-hot charcoal, put it under his blanket, and go out to tend the cows.

"Is that all?" said Mowgli. "If a cub can do it, there is nothing to fear." So he strode round the corner and met the boy, took the pot from his hand, and disappeared into the mist while the boy howled with fear. "They are very like me," said Mowgli, blowing into the pot as he had seen the woman do. "This thing will die if I do not give it things to eat"; and he dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff. Halfway up the hill he met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like diamonds on his coat.

"Akela has missed his kill," said the panther. "They would have killed him last night, but they needed you also. They were looking for you on the hill."