The deer , wild pig , and buffalo took up the cry hoarsely ; and Chil , the Kite , flew in great circles far and wide , whistling and shrieking the warning . By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the drinking-places when once the Water Truce has been declared . The reason of this is that drinking comes before eating . Every one in the Jungle can scramble along somehow when only game is scarce ; but water is water , and when there is but one source of supply , all hunting stops while the Jungle People go there for their needs . In good seasons , when water was plentiful , those who came down to drink at the Waingunga -- or anywhere else , for that matter -- did so at the risk of their lives , and that risk made no small part of the fascination of the night 's doings . To move down so cunningly that never a leaf stirred ; to wade knee-deep in the roaring shallows that drown all noise from behind ; to drink , looking backward over one shoulder , every muscle ready for the first desperate bound of keen terror ; to roll on the sandy margin , and return , wet-muzzled and well plumped out , to the admiring herd , was a thing that all tall-antlered young bucks took a delight in , precisely because they knew that at any moment Bagheera or Shere Khan might leap upon them and bear them down . But now all that life-and-death fun was ended , and the Jungle People came up , starved and weary , to the shrunken river , -- tiger , bear , deer , buffalo , and pig , all together , -- drank the fouled waters , and hung above them , too exhausted to move off . The deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of something better than dried bark and withered leaves . The buffaloes had found no wallows to be cool in , and no green crops to steal . The snakes had left the Jungle and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray frog . They curled round wet stones , and never offered to strike when the nose of a rooting pig dislodged them . The river-turtles had long ago been killed by Bagheera , cleverest of hunters , and the fish had buried themselves deep in the dry mud . Only the Peace Rock lay across the shallows like a long snake , and the little tired ripples hissed as they dried on its hot side . It was here that Mowgli came nightly for the cool and the companionship . The most hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared for the boy then , His naked hide made him seem more lean and wretched than any of his fellows . His hair was bleached to tow colour by the sun ; his ribs stood out like the ribs of a basket , and the lumps on his knees and elbows , where he was used to track on all fours , gave his shrunken limbs the look of knotted grass-stems . But his eye , under his matted forelock , was cool and quiet , for Bagheera was his adviser in this time of trouble , and told him to go quietly , hunt slowly , and never , on any account , to lose his temper . `` It is an evil time , '' said the Black Panther , one furnace-hot evening , `` but it will go if we can live till the end . Is thy stomach full , Man-cub ? '' `` There is stuff in my stomach , but I get no good of it .
Think you , XXXXX , the Rains have forgotten us and will never come again ? ''
Bagheera Truce Waingunga colour day drinking-places grass-stems left night nightly