PHAO

This was not a question in which Mowgli concerned himself, for, as he said, he had eaten sour fruit, and he knew the tree it hung from; but when Phao, son of Phaona (his father was the Gray Tracker in the days of Akela's headship), fought his way to the leadership of the Pack, according to the Jungle Law, and the old calls and songs began to ring under the stars once more, Mowgli came to the Council Rock for memory's sake.

Phao and Akela were on the Rock together, and below them, every nerve strained, sat the others.

"What moves?" said Phao, for that is the question all the Jungle asks after the pheeal cries.

Phao heard his teeth crack on a haunch-bone and grunted approvingly.

He swam down-stream, and opposite the Rock he came on Phao and Akela listening to the night noises.

"When come they?" said Phao. "And where is my Man-cub?" said Akela.

Once Mowgli passed Akela, a dhole on either flank, and his all but toothless jaws closed over the loins of a third; and once he saw Phao, his teeth set in the throat of a dhole, tugging the unwilling beast forward till the yearlings could finish him.

"The bone is cracked!" thundered Phao, son of Phaona.

And Mowgli sat through it all till the cold daybreak, when Phao's wet, red muzzle was dropped in his hand, and Mowgli drew back to show the gaunt body of Akela.

"Good hunting!" said Phao, as though Akela were still alive, and then over his bitten shoulder to the others: "Howl, dogs!