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 dhole whose hind-quarters were hidden by the weight of a clinging wolf . `` My kill ! '' snorted the wolf through his wrinkled nostrils . `` Leave him to me . '' `` Is thy stomach still empty , Outlier ? '' said Mowgli .
Won-tolla was fearfully punished , but his grip had paralysed the XXXXX , who could not turn round and reach him .
Brother Mowgli centre dhole dholes first left night third worry-worry-worry