The cubs were out, but Mother Wolf, at the back of the cave, knew

by his breathing that something was troubling her frog.

"What is it, Son?" she said.

"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!"

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.

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.

"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."

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.

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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."

"Come soon!" said Father Wolf. "Oh, wise little frog, come

again soon; for we be old, thy mother and I."

"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."

"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!"

The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside alone, to meet those mysterious things that are called

men.