EPISODE: 4.

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.

"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."

"I was among the plowed lands. I am ready. See!" Mowgli held

up the fire-pot.

"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?"

"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."

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.

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.

"He has no right," whispered Bagheera. "Say so. He is a dog's

son. He will be frightened."

Mowgli sprang to his feet. "Free People," he cried, "does Shere

Khan lead the Pack? What has a tiger to do with our leadership?"

"Seeing that the leadership is yet open, and being asked to

speak—" Shere Khan began. "By whom?" said Mowgli. "Are we all jackals, to fawn on this

cattle butcher? The leadership of the Pack is with the Pack

alone."

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.

Akela raised his old head wearily:—

"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."

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!"

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."

"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."

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." "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.

"A bull paid ten years ago!" the Pack snarled. "What do we

care for bones ten years old?"

"Or for a pledge?" said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under

his lip. "Well are ye called the Free People!"

"No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle," howled

Shere Khan. "Give him to me!"

"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."

"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.

"Now the business is in thy hands," said Bagheera to Mowgli.

"We can do no more except fight."

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."

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.

Mowgli thrust his dead branch into the fire till the twigs lit

and crackled, and whirled it above his head among the cowering

wolves.

"Thou art the master," said Bagheera in an undertone. "Save

Akela from the death. He was ever thy friend."

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.

"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!"

Shere Khan's ears lay flat back on his head, and he shut his

eyes, for the blazing branch was very near. "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.

"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.

"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?"

"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.

"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.

"Ye will not forget me?" said Mowgli....