The idea of Bagheera being a stray fawn upset Mowgli altogether , and he laughed and caught his breath , and sobbed and laughed again , till he had to jump into a pool to make himself stop . Then he swam round and round , ducking in and out of the bars of the moonlight like the frog , his namesake . By this time Hathi and his three sons had turned , each to one point of the compass , and were striding silently down the valleys a mile away . They went on and on for two days ' march -- that is to say , a long sixty miles -- through the Jungle ; and every step they took , and every wave of their trunks , was known and noted and talked over by Mang and Chil and the Monkey People and all the birds . Then they began to feed , and fed quietly for a week or so . Hathi and his sons are like Kaa , the Rock Python . They never hurry till they have to . At the end of that time -- and none knew who had started it -- a rumour went through the Jungle that there was better food and water to be found in such and such a valley . The pig -- who , of course , will go to the ends of the earth for a full meal -- moved first by companies , scuffling over the rocks , and the deer followed , with the small wild foxes that live on the dead and dying of the herds ; and the heavy-shouldered nilghai moved parallel with the deer , and the wild buffaloes of the swamps came after the nilghai . The least little thing would have turned the scattered , straggling droves that grazed and sauntered and drank and grazed again ; but whenever there was an alarm some one would rise up and soothe them . At one time it would be Ikki the Porcupine , full of news of good feed just a little farther on ; at another Mang would cry cheerily and flap down a glade to show it was all empty ; or Baloo , his mouth full of roots , would shamble alongside a wavering line and half frighten , half romp it clumsily back to the proper road . Very many creatures broke back or ran away or lost interest , but very many were left to go forward . At the end of another ten days or so the situation was this . The deer and the pig and the nilghai were milling round and round in a circle of eight or ten miles radius , while the Eaters of Flesh skirmished round its edge . And the centre of that circle was the village , and round the village the crops were ripening , and in the crops sat men on what they call machans -- platforms like pigeon-perches , made of sticks at the top of four poles -- to scare away birds and other stealers . Then the deer were coaxed no more . The Eaters of Flesh were close behind them , and forced them forward and inward . It was a dark night when Hathi and his three sons slipped down from the Jungle , and broke off the poles of the machans with their trunks ; they fell as a snapped stalk of hemlock in bloom falls , and the men that tumbled from them heard the deep gurgling of the elephants in their ears . Then the vanguard of the bewildered armies of the deer broke down and flooded into the village grazing-grounds and the ploughed fields ; and the sharp-hoofed , rooting wild pig came with them , and what the deer left the pig spoiled , and from time to time an alarm of wolves would shake the herds , and they would rush to and fro desperately , treading down the young barley , and cutting flat the banks of the irrigating channels . Before the dawn broke the pressure on the outside of the circle gave way at one point .
The Eaters of Flesh had fallen back and XXXXX an open path to the south , and drove upon drove of buck fled along it .
Bagheera Baloo Hathi Porcupine fro glade left nilghai stealers week