The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning , and bring them back at night . The very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that hardly come up to their noses . So long as the boys keep with the herds they are safe , for not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle . But if they straggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards , they are sometimes carried off . Mowgli went through the village street in the dawn , sitting on the back of Rama , the great herd bull . The slaty-blue buffaloes , with their long , backward-sweeping horns and savage eyes , rose out their byres , one by one , and followed him , and Mowgli made it very clear to the children with him that he was the master . He beat the buffaloes with a long , polished bamboo , and told Kamya , one of the boys , to graze the cattle by themselves , while he went on with the buffaloes , and to be very careful not to stray away from the herd . An Indian grazing ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little ravines , among which the herds scatter and disappear . The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places , where they lie wallowing or basking in the warm mud for hours . Mowgli drove them on to the edge of the plain where the Waingunga came out of the jungle ; then he dropped from Rama 's neck , trotted off to a bamboo clump , and found Gray Brother . `` Ah , '' said Gray Brother , `` I have waited here very many days . What is the meaning of this cattle-herding work ? '' `` It is an order , '' said Mowgli . `` I am a village herd for a while . What news of Shere Khan ? '' `` He has come back to this country , and has waited here a long time for thee . Now he has gone off again , for the game is scarce . But he means to kill thee . '' `` Very good , '' said Mowgli . `` So long as he is away do thou or one of the four brothers sit on that rock , so that I can see thee as I come out of the village .
When he comes back wait XXXXX me in the ravine by the dhak tree in the center of the plain .
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