Mowgli followed the rush , stabbing and slicing as the dholes , huddled together , rushed up the river-beach in one wave . Then the long fight began , heaving and straining and splitting and scattering and narrowing and broadening along the red , wet sands , and over and between the tangled tree-roots , and through and among the bushes , and in and out of the grass clumps ; for even now the dholes were two to one . But they met wolves fighting for all that made the Pack , and not only the short , high , deep-chested , white-tusked hunters of the Pack , but the anxious-eyed lahinis -- the she-wolves of the lair , as the saying is -- fighting for their litters , with here and there a yearling wolf , his first coat still half woolly , tugging and grappling by their sides . A wolf , you must know , flies at the throat or snaps at the flank , while a dhole , by preference , bites at the belly ; so when the dholes were struggling out of the water and had to raise their heads , the odds were with the wolves . On dry land the wolves suffered ; but in the water or ashore , Mowgli 's knife came and went without ceasing . The Four had worried their way to his side . Gray Brother , crouched between the boy 's knees , was protecting his stomach , while the others guarded his back and either side , or stood over him when the shock of a leaping , yelling dhole who had thrown himself full on the steady blade bore him down . For the rest , it was one tangled confusion -- a locked and swaying mob that moved from right to left and from left to right along the bank ; and also ground round and round slowly on its own centre . Here would be a heaving mound , like a water-blister in a whirlpool , which would break like a water-blister , and throw up four or five mangled dogs , each striving to get back to the centre ; here would be a single wolf borne down by two or three dholes , laboriously dragging them forward , and sinking the while ; here a yearling cub would be held up by the pressure round him , though he had been killed early , while his mother , crazed with dumb rage , rolled over and over , snapping , and passing on ; and in the middle of the thickest press , perhaps , one wolf and one dhole , forgetting everything else , would be manoeuvring for first hold till they were whirled away by a rush of furious fighters . Once Mowgli passed Akela , a dhole on either flank , and his all but toothless jaws closed over the loins of a third ; and once he saw Phao , his teeth set in the throat of a dhole , tugging the unwilling beast forward till the yearlings could finish him . But the bulk of the fight was blind flurry and smother in the dark ; hit , trip , and tumble , yelp , groan , and worry-worry-worry , round him and behind him and above him . As the night wore on , the quick , giddy-go-round motion increased . The dholes were cowed and afraid to attack the stronger wolves , but did not yet dare to run away . Mowgli felt that the end was coming soon , and contented himself with striking merely to cripple . The yearlings were growing bolder ; there was time now and again to breathe , and pass a word to a friend , and the mere flicker of the knife would sometimes turn a dog aside . `` The meat is very near the bone , '' Gray Brother yelled . He was bleeding from a score of flesh-wounds . `` But the bone is yet to be cracked , '' said Mowgli . `` Eowawa ! THUS do we do in the Jungle ! ''
The red blade ran like a flame along the side of a XXXXX whose hind-quarters were hidden by the weight of a clinging wolf .
Akela Brother cub dhole first lahinis night river-beach she-wolves worry-worry-worry