EPISODE: 12

"What is this folly?" said Buldeo angrily. "To think that thou

canst skin a tiger! Where did the buffaloes kill him? It is the

Lame Tiger too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well,

well, we will overlook thy letting the herd run off, and perhaps I

will give thee one of the rupees of the reward when I have taken

the skin to Khanhiwara." He fumbled in his waist cloth for flint

and steel, and stooped down to singe Shere Khan's whiskers.

Most native hunters always singe a tiger's whiskers to prevent

his ghost from haunting them.

"Hum!" said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin

of a forepaw. "So thou wilt take the hide to Khanhiwara for the

reward, and perhaps give me one rupee? Now it is in my mind

that I need the skin for my own use. Heh! Old man, take away

that fire!"

"What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village? Thy luck

and the stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill.

The tiger has just fed, or he would have gone twenty miles by

this time. Thou canst not even skin him properly, little beggar

brat, and forsooth I, Buldeo, must be told not to singe his

whiskers. Mowgli, I will not give thee one anna of the reward,

but only a very big beating. Leave the carcass!"

"By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli, who was trying to

get at the shoulder, "must I stay babbling to an old ape all noon?

Here, Akela, this man plagues me."

Buldeo, who was still stooping over Shere Khan's head, found

himself sprawling on the grass, with a gray wolf standing over

him, while Mowgli went on skinning as though he were alone in

all India.

"Ye-es," he said, between his teeth. "Thou art altogether right,

Buldeo. Thou wilt never give me one anna of the reward. There

is an old war between this lame tiger and myself—a very old

war, and—I have won."

To do Buldeo justice, if he had been ten years younger he

would have taken his chance with Akela had he met the wolf in the woods, but a wolf who obeyed the orders of this boy who

had private wars with man-eating tigers was not a common

animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind, thought Buldeo,

and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would

protect him. He lay as still as still, expecting every minute to see

Mowgli turn into a tiger too.

"Maharaj! Great King," he said at last in a husky whisper.

"Yes," said Mowgli, without turning his head, chuckling a

little.

"I am an old man. I did not know that thou wast anything

more than a herdsboy. May I rise up and go away, or will thy

servant tear me to pieces?"

"Go, and peace go with thee. Only, another time do not

meddle with my game. Let him go, Akela."

Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could, looking

back over his shoulder in case Mowgli should change into

something terrible. When he got to the village he told a tale of

magic and enchantment and sorcery that made the priest look

very grave.

Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight

before he and the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of

the body.

"Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me

to herd them, Akela."

The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got

near the village Mowgli saw lights, and heard the conches and

bells in the temple blowing and banging. Half the village seemed

to be waiting for him by the gate. "That is because I have killed

Shere Khan," he said to himself. But a shower of stones whistled

about his ears, and the villagers shouted: "Sorcerer! Wolf's brat!

Jungle demon! Go away! Get hence quickly or the priest will

turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot, Buldeo, shoot!" The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young

buffalo bellowed in pain.

"More sorcery!" shouted the villagers. "He can turn bullets.

Buldeo, that was thy buffalo."

"Now what is this?" said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones

flew thicker.

"They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine," said

Akela, sitting down composedly. "It is in my head that, if bullets

mean anything, they would cast thee out."

"Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!" shouted the priest, waving a

sprig of the sacred tulsi plant.

"Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is

because I am a wolf. Let us go, Akela."

A woman—it was Messua—ran across to the herd, and cried:

"Oh, my son, my son! They say thou art a sorcerer who can turn

himself into a beast at will. I do not believe, but go away or they

will kill thee. Buldeo says thou art a wizard, but I know thou

hast avenged Nathoo's death."

"Come back, Messua!" shouted the crowd. "Come back, or we

will stone thee."

Mowgli laughed a little short ugly laugh, for a stone had hit

him in the mouth. "Run back, Messua. This is one of the foolish

tales they tell under the big tree at dusk. I have at least paid for

thy son's life. Farewell; and run quickly, for I shall send the herd

in more swiftly than their brickbats. I am no wizard, Messua.

Farewell!"

"Now, once more, Akela," he cried. "Bring the herd in."

The buffaloes were anxious enough to get to the village. They

hardly needed Akela's yell, but charged through the gate like a

whirlwind, scattering the crowd right and left. "Keep count!" shouted Mowgli scornfully. "It may be that I

have stolen one of them. Keep count, for I will do your herding

no more. Fare you well, children of men, and thank Messua that

I do not come in with my wolves and hunt you up and down

your street."

He turned on his heel and walked away with the Lone Wolf,

and as he looked up at the stars he felt happy. "No more

sleeping in traps for me, Akela. Let us get Shere Khan's skin and

go away. No, we will not hurt the village, for Messua was kind

to me."

When the moon rose over the plain, making it look all milky,

the horrified villagers saw Mowgli, with two wolves at his heels

and a bundle on his head, trotting across at the steady wolf's

trot that eats up the long miles like fire. Then they banged the

temple bells and blew the conches louder than ever. And Messua

cried, and Buldeo embroidered the story of his adventures in the

jungle, till he ended by saying that Akela stood up on his hind

legs and talked like a man.

The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the two

wolves came to the hill of the Council Rock, and they stopped at

Mother Wolf's cave.

"They have cast me out from the Man-Pack, Mother," shouted

Mowgli, "but I come with the hide of Shere Khan to keep my

word."

Mother Wolf walked stiffly from the cave with the cubs behind

her, and her eyes glowed as she saw the skin.

"I told him on that day, when he crammed his head and

shoulders into this cave, hunting for thy life, Little Frog—I told

him that the hunter would be the hunted. It is well done."

"Little Brother, it is well done," said a deep voice in the

thicket. "We were lonely in the jungle without thee, and

Bagheera came running to Mowgli's bare feet. They clambered

up the Council Rock together, and Mowgli spread the skin out

on the flat stone where Akela used to sit, and pegged it down with four slivers of bamboo, and Akela lay down upon it, and

called the old call to the Council, 'Look—look well, O Wolves,'

exactly as he had called when Mowgli was first brought there."

Ever since Akela had been deposed, the Pack had been

without a leader, hunting and fighting at their own pleasure. But

they answered the call from habit; and some of them were lame

from the traps they had fallen into, and some limped from shot

wounds, and some were mangy from eating bad food, and many

were missing. But they came to the Council Rock, all that were

left of them, and saw Shere Khan's striped hide on the rock, and

the huge claws dangling at the end of the empty dangling feet. It

was then that Mowgli made up a song that came up into his

throat all by itself, and he shouted it aloud, leaping up and

down on the rattling skin, and beating time with his heels till he

had no more breath left, while Gray Brother and Akela howled

between the verses.

"Look well, O Wolves. Have I kept my word?" said Mowgli.

And the wolves bayed "Yes," and one tattered wolf howled:

"Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O Man-cub, for we be

sick of this lawlessness, and we would be the Free People once

more."

"Nay," purred Bagheera, "that may not be. When ye are full-

fed, the madness may come upon you again. Not for nothing are

ye called the Free People. Ye fought for freedom, and it is yours.

Eat it, O Wolves."

"Man-Pack and Wolf-Pack have cast me out," said Mowgli.

"Now I will hunt alone in the jungle."

"And we will hunt with thee," said the four cubs.

So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the

jungle from that day on. But he was not always alone, because,

years afterward, he became a man and married.

But that is a story for grown-ups....