“How far?” said Gray Brother, panting and snapping.

“Till the sides are higher than Shere Khan can jump,” shouted Mowgli.  “Keep them there till we come down.”  The bulls swept off as Akela bayed, and Gray Brother stopped in front of the cows.  They charged down on him, and he ran just before them to the foot of the ravine, as Akela drove the bulls far to the left.

“Well done!  Another charge and they are fairly started.  Careful, now—­careful, Akela.  A snap too much and the bulls will charge.  Hujah!  This is wilder work than driving black-buck.  Didst thou think these creatures could move so swiftly?” Mowgli called.

“I have—­have hunted these too in my time,” gasped Akela in the dust.  “Shall I turn them into the jungle?”

“Ay!  Turn.  Swiftly turn them!  Rama is mad with rage.  Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him to-day.”

The bulls were turned, to the right this time, and crashed into the standing thicket.  The other herd children, watching with the cattle half a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry them, crying that the buffaloes had gone mad and run away.

But Mowgli’s plan was simple enough.  All he wanted to do was to make a big circle uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between the bulls and the cows; for he knew that after a meal and a full drink Shere Khan would not be in any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine.  He was soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the rear, only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rear-guard.  It was a long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and give Shere Khan warning.  At last Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd at the head of the ravine on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to the ravine itself.  From that height you could see across the tops of the trees down to the plain below; but what Mowgli looked at was the sides of the ravine, and he saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they ran nearly straight up and down, while the vines and creepers that hung over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out.

“Let them breathe, Akela,” he said, holding up his hand.  “They have not winded him yet.  Let them breathe.  I must tell Shere Khan who comes.  We have him in the trap.”

He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine—­it was almost like shouting down a tunnel—­and the echoes jumped from rock to rock.

After a long time there came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a full-fed tiger just wakened.

“Who calls?” said Shere Khan, and a splendid peacock fluttered up out of the ravine screeching.

“I, Mowgli.  Cattle thief, it is time to come to the Council Rock!  Down—­hurry them down, Akela!  Down, Rama, down!”

The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but Akela gave tongue in the full hunting-yell, and they pitched over one after the other, just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting up round them.  Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and before they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Shere Khan and bellowed.