Mowgli stopped on the lower path below the Wolf Cave and looked hard at the flat stone. Grey Brother, the young wolf who kept closest to him on the hunting paths, was not there. The stone still held a little warmth from the day, but the light had gone thin over the scrub and broken ground. Thorn-bushes stood black at their edges, and the narrow gullies between the stones were already filling with shadow.
Above him, near the cave mouth, Raksha moved once among the rocks. The she-wolf who had taken Mowgli into the cave as one of her own called down only one line. "Bring him in before the dark deepens." Mowgli lifted his head. "I will," he said, and turned back to the path at once.
He went first by the ordinary way, moving quick and low, because Grey Brother should have come that way if nothing had gone wrong. Mowgli checked the dust where the path bent round a clump of dry grass, and searched the place where wolves liked to spring from one stone to another instead of stepping through the prickles. He found old marks and a single rabbit print, but nothing showed that Grey Brother had passed homeward.
Mowgli came back to the flat stone and stood still. He did not waste breath calling out at once, for Grey Brother would have answered if he had been free to do so. Then Mowgli saw a scuff in the dust beside the stone, lying off …
6 chapters
