<p>Now you must be content to skip ten or eleven whole years, and only guess
at all the wonderful life that Mowgli led among the wolves, because if it
were written out it would fill ever so many books. He grew up with the
cubs, though they, of course, were grown wolves almost before he was a
child. And Father Wolf taught him his business, and the meaning of things
in the jungle, till every rustle in the grass, every breath of the warm
night air, every note of the owls above his head, every scratch of a bat's
claws as it roosted for a while in a tree, and every splash of every
little fish jumping in a pool meant just as much to him as the work of his
office means to a business man. When he was not learning he sat out in the
sun and slept, and ate and went to sleep again. When he felt dirty or hot
he swam in the forest pools; and when he wanted honey (Baloo told him that
honey and nuts were just as pleasant to eat as raw meat) he climbed up for
it, and that Bagheera showed him how to do. Bagheera would lie out on a
branch and call, "Come along, Little Brother," and at first Mowgli would
cling like the sloth, but afterward he would fling himself through the
branches almost as boldly as the gray ape. He took his place at the
Council Rock, too, when the Pack met, and there he discovered that if he
stared hard at any wolf, the wolf would be forced to drop his eyes, and so
he used to stare for fun. At other times he would pick the long thorns out
of the pads of his friends, for wolves suffer terribly from thorns and
burs in their coats. He would go down the hillside into the cultivated
lands by night, and look very curiously at the villagers in their huts,
but he had a mistrust of men because Bagheera showed him a square box with
a drop gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that he nearly walked into
it, and told him that it was a trap. He loved better than anything else to
go with Bagheera into the dark warm heart of the forest, to sleep all
through the drowsy day, and at night see how Bagheera did his killing.
Bagheera killed right and left as he felt hungry, and so did Mowgli—with
one exception. As soon as he was old enough to understand things, Bagheera
told him that he must never touch cattle because he had been bought into
the Pack at the price of a bull's life. "All the jungle is thine," said
Bagheera, "and thou canst kill everything that thou art strong enough to
kill; but for the sake of the bull that bought thee thou must never kill
or eat any cattle young or old. That is the Law of the Jungle." Mowgli
obeyed faithfully.</p>
<p>And he grew and grew strong as a boy must grow who does not know that he
is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of
except things to eat.</p>
<p>Mother Wolf told him once or twice that Shere Khan was not a creature to
be trusted, and that some day he must kill Shere Khan. But though a young
wolf would have remembered that advice every hour, Mowgli forgot it
because he was only a boy—though he would have called himself a wolf
if he had been able to speak in any human tongue.</p>
<p>Shere Khan was always crossing his path in the jungle, for as Akela grew
older and feebler the lame tiger had come to be great friends with the
younger wolves of the Pack, who followed him for scraps, a thing Akela
would never have allowed if he had dared to push his authority to the
proper bounds. Then Shere Khan would flatter them and wonder that such
fine young hunters were content to be led by a dying wolf and a man's cub.
"They tell me," Shere Khan would say, "that at Council ye dare not look
him between the eyes." And the young wolves would growl and bristle.</p>
<p>Bagheera, who had eyes and ears everywhere, knew something of this, and
once or twice he told Mowgli in so many words that Shere Khan would kill
him some day. Mowgli would laugh and answer: "I have the Pack and I have
thee; and Baloo, though he is so lazy, might strike a blow or two for my
sake. Why should I be afraid?"</p>
<p>It was one very warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera—born of
something that he had heard. Perhaps Ikki the Porcupine had told him; but
he said to Mowgli when they were deep in the jungle, as the boy lay with
his head on Bagheera's beautiful black skin, "Little Brother, how often
have I told thee that Shere Khan is thy enemy?"</p>
<p>"As many times as there are nuts on that palm," said Mowgli, who,
naturally, could not count. "What of it? I am sleepy, Bagheera, and Shere
Khan is all long tail and loud talk—like Mao, the Peacock."</p>
<p>"But this is no time for sleeping. Baloo knows it; I know it; the Pack
know it; and even the foolish, foolish deer know. Tabaqui has told thee
too."</p>
<p>"Ho! ho!" said Mowgli. "Tabaqui came to me not long ago with some rude
talk that I was a naked man's cub and not fit to dig pig-nuts. But I
caught Tabaqui by the tail and swung him twice against a palm-tree to
teach him better manners."</p>
<p>"That was foolishness, for though Tabaqui is a mischief-maker, he would
have told thee of something that concerned thee closely. Open those eyes,
Little Brother. Shere Khan dare not kill thee in the jungle. But remember,
Akela is very old, and soon the day comes when he cannot kill his buck,
and then he will be leader no more. Many of the wolves that looked thee
over when thou wast brought to the Council first are old too, and the
young wolves believe, as Shere Khan has taught them, that a man-cub has no
place with the Pack. In a little time thou wilt be a man."</p>
<p>"And what is a man that he should not run with his brothers?" said Mowgli.
"I was born in the jungle. I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle, and there
is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. Surely they
are my brothers!"</p>
<p>Bagheera stretched himself at full length and half shut his eyes. "Little
Brother," said he, "feel under my jaw."</p>
<p>Mowgli put up his strong brown hand, and just under Bagheera's silky chin,
where the giant rolling muscles were all hid by the glossy hair, he came
upon a little bald spot.</p>
<p>"There is no one in the jungle that knows that I, Bagheera, carry that
mark—the mark of the collar; and yet, Little Brother, I was born
among men, and it was among men that my mother died—in the cages of
the king's palace at Oodeypore. It was because of this that I paid the
price for thee at the Council when thou wast a little naked cub. Yes, I
too was born among men. I had never seen the jungle. They fed me behind
bars from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera—the
Panther—and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one
blow of my paw and came away. And because I had learned the ways of men, I
became more terrible in the jungle than Shere Khan. Is it not so?"</p>
<p>"Yes," said Mowgli, "all the jungle fear Bagheera—all except
Mowgli."</p>
<p>"Oh, thou art a man's cub," said the Black Panther very tenderly. "And
even as I returned to my jungle, so thou must go back to men at last—to
the men who are thy brothers—if thou art not killed in the Council."</p>
<p>"But why—but why should any wish to kill me?" said Mowgli.</p>
<p>"Look at me," said Bagheera. And Mowgli looked at him steadily between the
eyes. The big panther turned his head away in half a minute.</p>
<p>"That is why," he said, shifting his paw on the leaves. "Not even I can
look thee between the eyes, and I was born among men, and I love thee,
Little Brother. The others they hate thee because their eyes cannot meet
thine; because thou art wise; because thou hast pulled out thorns from
their feet—because thou art a man."</p>
<p>"I did not know these things," said Mowgli sullenly, and he frowned under
his heavy black eyebrows.</p>
<p>"What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue. By thy
very carelessness they know that thou art a man. But be wise. It is in my
heart that when Akela misses his next kill—and at each hunt it costs
him more to pin the buck—the Pack will turn against him and against
thee. They will hold a jungle Council at the Rock, and then—and then—I
have it!" said Bagheera, leaping up. "Go thou down quickly to the men's
huts in the valley, and take some of the Red Flower which they grow there,
so that when the time comes thou mayest have even a stronger friend than I
or Baloo or those of the Pack that love thee. Get the Red Flower."</p>
<p>By Red Flower Bagheera meant fire, only no creature in the jungle will
call fire by its proper name. Every beast lives in deadly fear of it, and
invents a hundred ways of describing it.</p>
<p>"The Red Flower?" said Mowgli. "That grows outside their huts in the
twilight. I will get some."</p>
<p>"There speaks the man's cub," said Bagheera proudly. "Remember that it
grows in little pots. Get one swiftly, and keep it by thee for time of
need."</p>
<p>"Good!" said Mowgli. "I go. But art thou sure, O my Bagheera"—he
slipped his arm around the splendid neck and looked deep into the big eyes—"art
thou sure that all this is Shere Khan's doing?"</p>
<p>"By the Broken Lock that freed me, I am sure, Little Brother."</p>
<p>"Then, by the Bull that bought me, I will pay Shere Khan full tale for
this, and it may be a little over," said Mowgli, and he bounded away.</p>
<p>"That is a man. That is all a man," said Bagheera to himself, lying down
again. "Oh, Shere Khan, never was a blacker hunting than that frog-hunt of
thine ten years ago!"</p>
<p>Mowgli was far and far through the forest, running hard, and his heart was
hot in him. He came to the cave as the evening mist rose, and drew breath,
and looked down the valley. The cubs were out, but Mother Wolf, at the
back of the cave, knew by his breathing that something was troubling her
frog.</p>
<p>"What is it, Son?" she said.</p>
<p>"Some bat's chatter of Shere Khan," he called back. "I hunt among the
plowed fields tonight," and he plunged downward through the bushes, to the
stream at the bottom of the valley. There he checked, for he heard the
yell of the Pack hunting, heard the bellow of a hunted Sambhur, and the
snort as the buck turned at bay. Then there were wicked, bitter howls from
the young wolves: "Akela! Akela! Let the Lone Wolf show his strength. Room
for the leader of the Pack! Spring, Akela!"</p>
<p>The Lone Wolf must have sprung and missed his hold, for Mowgli heard the
snap of his teeth and then a yelp as the Sambhur knocked him over with his
forefoot.</p>
<p>He did not wait for anything more, but dashed on; and the yells grew
fainter behind him as he ran into the croplands where the villagers lived.</p>
<p>"Bagheera spoke truth," he panted, as he nestled down in some cattle
fodder by the window of a hut. "To-morrow is one day both for Akela and
for me."</p>
<p>Then he pressed his face close to the window and watched the fire on the
hearth. He saw the husbandman's wife get up and feed it in the night with
black lumps. And when the morning came and the mists were all white and
cold, he saw the man's child pick up a wicker pot plastered inside with
earth, fill it with lumps of red-hot charcoal, put it under his blanket,
and go out to tend the cows in the byre.</p>
<p>"Is that all?" said Mowgli. "If a cub can do it, there is nothing to
fear." So he strode round the corner and met the boy, took the pot from
his hand, and disappeared into the mist while the boy howled with fear.</p>
<p>"They are very like me," said Mowgli, blowing into the pot as he had seen
the woman do. "This thing will die if I do not give it things to eat"; and
he dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff. Halfway up the hill he
met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like moonstones on his coat.</p>
<p>"Akela has missed," said the Panther. "They would have killed him last
night, but they needed thee also. They were looking for thee on the hill."</p>
<p>"I was among the plowed lands. I am ready. See!" Mowgli held up the
fire-pot.</p>
<p>"Good! Now, I have seen men thrust a dry branch into that stuff, and
presently the Red Flower blossomed at the end of it. Art thou not afraid?"</p>
<p>"No. Why should I fear? I remember now—if it is not a dream—how,
before I was a Wolf, I lay beside the Red Flower, and it was warm and
pleasant."</p>
<p>All that day Mowgli sat in the cave tending his fire pot and dipping dry
branches into it to see how they looked. He found a branch that satisfied
him, and in the evening when Tabaqui came to the cave and told him rudely
enough that he was wanted at the Council Rock, he laughed till Tabaqui ran
away. Then Mowgli went to the Council, still laughing.</p>
<p>Akela the Lone Wolf lay by the side of his rock as a sign that the
leadership of the Pack was open, and Shere Khan with his following of
scrap-fed wolves walked to and fro openly being flattered. Bagheera lay
close to Mowgli, and the fire pot was between Mowgli's knees. When they
were all gathered together, Shere Khan began to speak—a thing he
would never have dared to do when Akela was in his prime.</p>
<p>"He has no right," whispered Bagheera. "Say so. He is a dog's son. He will
be frightened."</p>
<p>Mowgli sprang to his feet. "Free People," he cried, "does Shere Khan lead
the Pack? What has a tiger to do with our leadership?"</p>
<p>"Seeing that the leadership is yet open, and being asked to speak—"
Shere Khan began.</p>
<p>"By whom?" said Mowgli. "Are we all jackals, to fawn on this cattle
butcher? The leadership of the Pack is with the Pack alone."</p>
<p>There were yells of "Silence, thou man's cub!" "Let him speak. He has kept
our Law"; and at last the seniors of the Pack thundered: "Let the Dead
Wolf speak." When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is called
the Dead Wolf as long as he lives, which is not long.</p>
<p>Akela raised his old head wearily:—</p>
<p>"Free People, and ye too, jackals of Shere Khan, for twelve seasons I have
led ye to and from the kill, and in all that time not one has been trapped
or maimed. Now I have missed my kill. Ye know how that plot was made. Ye
know how ye brought me up to an untried buck to make my weakness known. It
was cleverly done. Your right is to kill me here on the Council Rock, now.
Therefore, I ask, who comes to make an end of the Lone Wolf? For it is my
right, by the Law of the Jungle, that ye come one by one."</p>
<p>There was a long hush, for no single wolf cared to fight Akela to the
death. Then Shere Khan roared: "Bah! What have we to do with this
toothless fool? He is doomed to die! It is the man-cub who has lived too
long. Free People, he was my meat from the first. Give him to me. I am
weary of this man-wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle for ten seasons.
Give me the man-cub, or I will hunt here always, and not give you one
bone. He is a man, a man's child, and from the marrow of my bones I hate
him!"</p>
<p>Then more than half the Pack yelled: "A man! A man! What has a man to do
with us? Let him go to his own place."</p>
<p>"And turn all the people of the villages against us?" clamored Shere Khan.
"No, give him to me. He is a man, and none of us can look him between the
eyes."</p>
<p>Akela lifted his head again and said, "He has eaten our food. He has slept
with us. He has driven game for us. He has broken no word of the Law of
the Jungle."</p>
<p>"Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a
bull is little, but Bagheera's honor is something that he will perhaps
fight for," said Bagheera in his gentlest voice.</p>
<p>"A bull paid ten years ago!" the Pack snarled. "What do we care for bones
ten years old?"</p>
<p>"Or for a pledge?" said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip.
"Well are ye called the Free People!"</p>
<p>"No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle," howled Shere Khan.
"Give him to me!"</p>
<p>"He is our brother in all but blood," Akela went on, "and ye would kill
him here! In truth, I have lived too long. Some of ye are eaters of
cattle, and of others I have heard that, under Shere Khan's teaching, ye
go by dark night and snatch children from the villager's doorstep.
Therefore I know ye to be cowards, and it is to cowards I speak. It is
certain that I must die, and my life is of no worth, or I would offer that
in the man-cub's place. But for the sake of the Honor of the Pack,—a
little matter that by being without a leader ye have forgotten,—I
promise that if ye let the man-cub go to his own place, I will not, when
my time comes to die, bare one tooth against ye. I will die without
fighting. That will at least save the Pack three lives. More I cannot do;
but if ye will, I can save ye the shame that comes of killing a brother
against whom there is no fault—a brother spoken for and bought into
the Pack according to the Law of the Jungle."</p>
<p>"He is a man—a man—a man!" snarled the Pack. And most of the
wolves began to gather round Shere Khan, whose tail was beginning to
switch.</p>
<p>"Now the business is in thy hands," said Bagheera to Mowgli. "We can do no
more except fight."</p>
<p>Mowgli stood upright—the fire pot in his hands. Then he stretched
out his arms, and yawned in the face of the Council; but he was furious
with rage and sorrow, for, wolflike, the wolves had never told him how
they hated him. "Listen you!" he cried. "There is no need for this dog's
jabber. Ye have told me so often tonight that I am a man (and indeed I
would have been a wolf with you to my life's end) that I feel your words
are true. So I do not call ye my brothers any more, but sag [dogs], as a
man should. What ye will do, and what ye will not do, is not yours to say.
That matter is with me; and that we may see the matter more plainly, I,
the man, have brought here a little of the Red Flower which ye, dogs,
fear."</p>
<p>He flung the fire pot on the ground, and some of the red coals lit a tuft
of dried moss that flared up, as all the Council drew back in terror
before the leaping flames.</p>
<p>Mowgli thrust his dead branch into the fire till the twigs lit and
crackled, and whirled it above his head among the cowering wolves.</p>
<p>"Thou art the master," said Bagheera in an undertone. "Save Akela from the
death. He was ever thy friend."</p>
<p>Akela, the grim old wolf who had never asked for mercy in his life, gave
one piteous look at Mowgli as the boy stood all naked, his long black hair
tossing over his shoulders in the light of the blazing branch that made
the shadows jump and quiver.</p>
<p>"Good!" said Mowgli, staring round slowly. "I see that ye are dogs. I go
from you to my own people—if they be my own people. The jungle is
shut to me, and I must forget your talk and your companionship. But I will
be more merciful than ye are. Because I was all but your brother in blood,
I promise that when I am a man among men I will not betray ye to men as ye
have betrayed me." He kicked the fire with his foot, and the sparks flew
up. "There shall be no war between any of us in the Pack. But here is a
debt to pay before I go." He strode forward to where Shere Khan sat
blinking stupidly at the flames, and caught him by the tuft on his chin.
Bagheera followed in case of accidents. "Up, dog!" Mowgli cried. "Up, when
a man speaks, or I will set that coat ablaze!"</p>
<p>Shere Khan's ears lay flat back on his head, and he shut his eyes, for the
blazing branch was very near.</p>
<p>"This cattle-killer said he would kill me in the Council because he had
not killed me when I was a cub. Thus and thus, then, do we beat dogs when
we are men. Stir a whisker, Lungri, and I ram the Red Flower down thy
gullet!" He beat Shere Khan over the head with the branch, and the tiger
whimpered and whined in an agony of fear.</p>
<p>"Pah! Singed jungle cat—go now! But remember when next I come to the
Council Rock, as a man should come, it will be with Shere Khan's hide on
my head. For the rest, Akela goes free to live as he pleases. Ye will not
kill him, because that is not my will. Nor do I think that ye will sit
here any longer, lolling out your tongues as though ye were somebodies,
instead of dogs whom I drive out—thus! Go!" The fire was burning
furiously at the end of the branch, and Mowgli struck right and left round
the circle, and the wolves ran howling with the sparks burning their fur.
At last there were only Akela, Bagheera, and perhaps ten wolves that had
taken Mowgli's part. Then something began to hurt Mowgli inside him, as he
had never been hurt in his life before, and he caught his breath and
sobbed, and the tears ran down his face.</p>
<p>"What is it? What is it?" he said. "I do not wish to leave the jungle, and
I do not know what this is. Am I dying, Bagheera?"</p>
<p>"No, Little Brother. That is only tears such as men use," said Bagheera.
"Now I know thou art a man, and a man's cub no longer. The jungle is shut
indeed to thee henceforward. Let them fall, Mowgli. They are only tears."
So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart would break; and he had never
cried in all his life before.</p>
<p>"Now," he said, "I will go to men. But first I must say farewell to my
mother." And he went to the cave where she lived with Father Wolf, and he
cried on her coat, while the four cubs howled miserably.</p>
<p>"Ye will not forget me?" said Mowgli.</p>
<p>"Never while we can follow a trail," said the cubs. "Come to the foot of
the hill when thou art a man, and we will talk to thee; and we will come
into the croplands to play with thee by night."</p>
<p>"Come soon!" said Father Wolf. "Oh, wise little frog, come again soon; for
we be old, thy mother and I."</p>
<p>"Come soon," said Mother Wolf, "little naked son of mine. For, listen,
child of man, I loved thee more than ever I loved my cubs."</p>
<p>"I will surely come," said Mowgli. "And when I come it will be to lay out
Shere Khan's hide upon the Council Rock. Do not forget me! Tell them in
the jungle never to forget me!"</p>
<p>The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside alone,
to meet those mysterious things that are called men.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack </h2>
<p>As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled<br/>
Once, twice and again!<br/>
And a doe leaped up, and a doe leaped up<br/>
From the pond in the wood where the wild deer sup.<br/>
This I, scouting alone, beheld,<br/>
Once, twice and again!<br/>
<br/>
As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled<br/>
Once, twice and again!<br/>
And a wolf stole back, and a wolf stole back<br/>
To carry the word to the waiting pack,<br/>
And we sought and we found and we bayed on his track<br/>
Once, twice and again!<br/>
<br/>
As the dawn was breaking the Wolf Pack yelled<br/>
Once, twice and again!<br/>
Feet in the jungle that leave no mark!<br/>
<br/>
Eyes that can see in the dark—the dark!<br/>
Tongue—give tongue to it! Hark! O hark!<br/>
Once, twice and again!<br/></p>
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