The birds and the monkey-people went north early in the year,
for they knew what was coming; and the deer and the wild pig
broke far away to the perished fields of the villages, dying
sometimes before the eyes of men too weak to kill them. Chil,
the Kite, stayed and grew fat, for there was a great deal of
carrion, and evening after evening he brought the news to the
beasts, too weak to force their way to fresh hunting-grounds,
that the sun was killing the Jungle for three days" flight in
every direction.

Mowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant, fell back
on stale honey, three years old, scraped out of deserted
rock-hives--honey black as a sloe, and dusty with dried sugar.
He hunted, too, for deep-boring grubs under the bark of the
trees, and robbed the wasps of their new broods. All the game
in the jungle was no more than skin and bone, and Bagheera
could kill thrice in a night, and hardly get a full meal. But
the want of water was the worst, for though the Jungle People
drink seldom they must drink deep.

And the heat went on and on, and sucked up all the moisture,
till at last the main channel of the Waingunga was the only
stream that carried a trickle of water between its dead banks;
and when Hathi, the wild elephant, who lives for a hundred
years and more, saw a long, lean blue ridge of rock show dry
in the very centre of the stream, he knew that he was looking
at the Peace Rock, and then and there he lifted up his trunk
and proclaimed the Water Truce, as his father before him had
proclaimed it fifty years ago. The deer, wild pig, and buffalo
took up the cry hoarsely; and Chil, the Kite, flew in great