“ ‘Footless, yellow earthworm,’ ” said Bagheera under his whiskers, as though he were trying to remember something.

“ Sssss! Have they ever called me that ?” said Kaa.

“Something of that kind it was that they shouted to us last moon, but we never noticed them. They will say anything⁠—even that thou hast lost all thy teeth, and dare not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they are indeed shameless, these Bandar-log)⁠—because thou art afraid of the he-goats’ horns,” Bagheera went on sweetly.

Now a snake, especially a wary old python like Kaa, very seldom shows that he is angry; but Baloo and Bagheera could see the big swallowing muscles on either side of Kaa’s throat ripple and bulge.

“The Bandar-log have shifted their grounds,” he said, quietly. “When I came up into the sun today I heard them whooping among the treetops.”

“It⁠—it is the Bandar-log that we follow now,” said Baloo; but the words stuck in his throat, for this was the first time in his memory that one of the Jungle People had owned to being interested in the doings of the monkeys.

“Beyond doubt, then, it is no small thing that takes two such hunters⁠—leaders in their own jungle, I am certain⁠—on the trail of the Bandar-log,” Kaa replied, courteously, as he swelled with curiosity.

“Indeed,” Baloo began, “I am no more than the old, and sometimes very foolish, Teacher of the Law to the Seeonee wolf-cubs, and Bagheera here⁠—”

“Is Bagheera,” said the Black Panther, and his jaws shut with a snap, for he did not believe in being humble. “The trouble is this, Kaa. Those nut-stealers and pickers of palm-leaves have stolen away our man-cub, of whom thou hast perhaps heard.”