"No. The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish
to break my head," said Mowgii, who, in those days, was quite
sure that he knew as much as any five of the Jungle People
put together.

"That is thy loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom."
Ikki ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his
nose-bristles, and Mowgli told Baloo what Ikki had said.
Baloo looked very grave, and mumbled half to himself:
"If I were alone I would change my hunting-grounds now,
before the others began to think. And yet--hunting among
strangers ends in fighting; and they might hurt the Man-cub.
We must wait and see how the mohwa blooms."

That spring the mohwa tree, that Baloo was so fond of, never
flowered. The greeny, cream-coloured, waxy blossoms were
heat-killed before they were born, and only a few bad-smelling
petals came down when he stood on his hind legs and shook
the tree. Then, inch by inch, the untempered heat crept into
the heart of the Jungle, turning it yellow, brown, and at
last black. The green growths in the sides of the ravines
burned up to broken wires and curled films of dead stuff;
the hidden pools sank down and caked over, keeping the last
least footmark on their edges as if it had been cast in iron;
the juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung
to and died at their feet; the bamboos withered, clanking when
the hot winds blew, and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in
the Jungle, till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering
blue boulders in the bed of the stream.