"Fool that I am! Oh, fat, brown, root-digging fool that I am," said
Baloo, uncoiling himself with a jerk, "it is true what Hathi the Wild
Elephant says: `To each his own fear'; and they, the Bandar-log, fear
Kaa the Rock Snake. He can climb as well as they can. He steals the
young monkeys in the night. The whisper of his name makes their wicked
tails cold. Let us go to Kaa."

"What will he do for us? He is not of our tribe, being footless--and
with most evil eyes," said Bagheera.

"He is very old and very cunning. Above all, he is always hungry," said
Baloo hopefully. "Promise him many goats."

"He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be asleep
now, and even were he awake what if he would rather kill his own goats?"
Bagheera, who did not know much about Kaa, was naturally suspicious.

"Then in that case, thou and I together, old hunter, might make him see
reason." Here Baloo rubbed his faded brown shoulder against the Panther,
and they went off to look for Kaa the Rock Python.

They found him stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun,
admiring his beautiful new coat, for he had been in retirement for the
last ten days changing his skin, and now he was very splendid--darting
his big blunt-nosed head along the ground, and twisting the thirty feet
of his body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking his lips as he
thought of his dinner to come.

"He has not eaten," said Baloo, with a grunt of relief, as soon as