“Shere Khan does us great honor,” said Father Wolf,but his eyes were very angry.“What does Shere Khan need?”
“My quarry. A man’s cub went this way,” said Shere Khan.“Its parents have run off. Give it to me.”
Shere Khan had jumped at a woodcutter’s campfire,as Father Wolf had said,and was furious from the pain of his burned feet.But Father Wolf knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in by. Even where he was, Shere Khan’s shoulders and forepaws were cramped for want of room, as a man’s would be if he tried to fight in a barrel.
“The Wolves are a free people,” said Father Wolf.“They take orders from the Head of the Pack,and not from any striped cattle-killer.The man’s cub is ours--to kill if we choose.”
“Ye choose and ye do not choose!What talk is this of choosing?By the bull that I killed,am I to stand nosing into your dog’s den for my fair dues?It is I, Shere Khan, who speak!”
The tiger’s roar filled the cave with thunder.Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward,her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness,facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.
“And it is I, Raksha [The Demon], who answers.The man’s cub is mine, Lungri--mine to me!He shall not be killed.He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack;and in the end, look you,hunter of little naked cubs--frog-eater--fish-killer--he shall hunt thee!Now get hence, or by the Sambhur that I killed (I eat no starved cattle),back thou goest to thy mother,burned beast of the jungle,lamer than ever thou camest into the world!Go!”
Father Wolf looked on amazed.He had almost forgotten the days when he won Mother Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she ran in the Pack and was not called The Demon for compliment’s sake. Shere Khan might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother Wolf, for he knew that where he was she had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave mouth growling, and when he was clear he shouted:
“Each dog barks in his own yard!We will see what the Pack will say to this fostering of man-cubs.The cub is mine, and to my teeth he will come in the end,O bush-tailed thieves!”
Mother Wolf threw herself down panting among the cubs,and Father Wolf said to her gravely:
“Shere Khan speaks this much truth.The cub must be shown to the Pack.Wilt thou still keep him, Mother?”
“Keep him!” she gasped. “He came naked, by night,alone and very hungry; yet he was not afraid!Look, he has pushed one of my babes to one side already.And that lame butcher would have killed him and would have run off to the Waingunga while the villagers here hunted through all our lairs in revenge!Keep him?Assuredly I will keep him. Lie still, little frog.O thou Mowgli--for Mowgli the Frog I will call thee--the time will come when thou wilt hunt Shere Khan as he has hunted thee.”
“But what will our Pack say?” said Father Wolf.
The Law of the Jungle lays down very clearly that any wolf may,when he marries, withdraw from the Pack he belongs to.But as soon as his cubs are old enough to stand on their feet he must bring them to the Pack Council, which is generally held once a month at full moon, in order that the other wolves may identify them. After that inspection the cubs are free to run where they please, and until they have killed their first buck no excuse is accepted if a grown wolf of the Pack kills one of them. The punishment is death where the murderer can be found; and if you think for a minute you will see that this must be so.
Father Wolf waited till his cubs could run a little,and then on the night of the Pack Meeting took them and Mowgli and Mother Wolf to the Council Rock--a hilltop covered with stones and boulders where a hundred wolves could hide. Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf, who led all the Pack by strength and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below him sat forty or more wolves of every size and color, from badger-colored veterans who could handle a buck alone to young black three-year-olds who thought they could. The Lone Wolf had led them for a year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf trap in his youth, and once he had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew the manners and customs of men. There was very little talking at the Rock. The cubs tumbled over each other in the center of the circle where their mothers and fathers sat, and now and again a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet. Sometimes a mother would push her cub far out into the moonlight to be sure that he had not been overlooked. Akela from his rock would cry: “Ye know the Law--ye know the Law. Look well, O Wolves!” And the anxious mothers would take up the call:“Look--look well, O Wolves!”
At last--and Mother Wolf’s neck bristles lifted as the time came--Father Wolf pushed “Mowgli the Frog,” as they called him, into the center, where he sat laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened in the moonlight.
Akela never raised his head from his paws,but went on with the monotonous cry: “Look well!” A muffled roar came up from behind the rocks--the voice of Shere Khan crying:“The cub is mine. Give him to me.What have the Free People to do with a man’s cub?” Akela never even twitched his ears. All he said was:“Look well, O Wolves!What have the Free People to do with the orders of any save the Free People?Look well!”
There was a chorus of deep growls,and a young wolf in his fourth year flung back Shere Khan’s question to Akela:“What have the Free People to do with a man’s cub?” Now, the Law of the Jungle lays down that if there is any dispute as to the right of a cub to be accepted by the Pack, he must be spoken for by at least two members of the Pack who are not his father and mother.
“Who speaks for this cub?” said Akela. “Among the Free People who speaks?” There was no answer and Mother Wolf got ready for what she knew would be her last fight, if things came to fighting.
Then the only other creature who is allowed at the Pack Council--Baloo,the sleepy brown bear who teaches the wolf cubs the Law of the Jungle:old Baloo, who can come and go where he pleases because he eats only nuts and roots and honey--rose upon his hind quarters and grunted.
“The man’s cub--the man’s cub?” he said. “I speak for the man’s cub.There is no harm in a man’s cub.I have no gift of words, but I speak the truth.Let him run with the Pack,and be entered with the others.I myself will teach him.”
“We need yet another,” said Akela. “Baloo has spoken,and he is our teacher for the young cubs.Who speaks besides Baloo?”
A black shadow dropped down into the circle.It was Bagheera the Black Panther, inky black all over,but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.
“O Akela, and ye the Free People,” he purred,“I have no right in your assembly,but the Law of the Jungle says that if there is a doubt which is not a killing matter in regard to a new cub, the life of that cub may be bought at a price. And the Law does not say who may or may not pay that price. Am I right?”
“Good!Good!” said the young wolves, who are always hungry.“Listen to Bagheera. The cub can be bought for a price. It is the Law.”
“Knowing that I have no right to speak here, I ask your leave.”
“Speak then,” cried twenty voices.