Bagheera swept on along the clearly-marked trail, and Mowgli followed the steps of the Gond. For some time there was silence in the Jungle.

“Where art thou, Little Foot?” cried Bagheera. Mowgli’s voice answered him not fifty yards to the right.

“Um!” said the Panther, with a deep cough. “The two run side by side, drawing nearer!”

They raced on another half-mile, always keeping about the same distance, till Mowgli, whose head was not so close to the ground as Bagheera’s, cried: “They have met. Good hunting — look! Here stood Little Foot, with his knee on a rock — and yonder is Big Foot indeed!”

Not ten yards in front of them, stretched across a pile