THE JUNGLE BOOK

By Rudyard Kipling

Mowgli's Brothers

Now Rann the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free—
The herds are shut in barn and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Claw and tooth and paw.
Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!
— Night-Song in the Jungle

It was seven o'clock on a warm evening in the Seeonee hills. Father Wolf woke up from his sleep. He stretched his paws to wake them up. Mother Wolf lay curled around her four wolf babies, called cubs. The moon shone into their cave.

"It is time to hunt," said Father Wolf.

Just then, a jackal (a small wild dog) named Tabaqui came to the cave. Wolves did not like Tabaqui. He made trouble and told tales on others. But they were also a little afraid of him, because sometimes jackals go mad and bite everything in their path.

"Enter, then," said Father Wolf. "But there is no food here."

"Even a dry bone is a feast for me," said Tabaqui. He found an old bone in the back of the cave and began to chew it happily. Then he said something mean about Shere Khan, a tiger.

"Shere Khan has moved to hunt in these hills," Tabaqui said.

Shere Khan was a tiger who lived by the Waingunga River, far away.

"He has no right!" said Father Wolf angrily. Shere Khan was breaking the Law of the Jungle by moving without warning. This would scare away all the animals Father Wolf needed to hunt.

"He is called Lungri, the Lame One," said Mother Wolf. "He has a bad foot from birth. That is why he only kills slow cattle, not wild animals. Now the village people are angry at him. He has come here to make trouble for us too."

"Shall I tell him you are grateful?" joked Tabaqui.

"Out!" snapped Father Wolf.

After Tabaqui left, Father Wolf heard a strange noise. It was Shere Khan, growling in the valley below.

"He is not hunting deer tonight," said Mother Wolf. "He is hunting Man."

This scared Father Wolf. The Law of the Jungle said animals should never hunt people. If a tiger killed a person, hunters with guns would come and everyone in the jungle would suffer. Also, animals believed people were too weak and helpless to fight fairly.

Suddenly, they heard Shere Khan roar, then yelp in pain. He had jumped and missed his prey. He had also burned his feet by accidentally landing in a woodcutter's campfire!

Then, Mother Wolf heard something coming up the hill. "Get ready," she said.

Father Wolf got ready to jump at whatever was coming. But when he leaped, he saw it was not an animal at all—it was a human baby! The baby was naked and small, walking on his own. He looked up at Father Wolf and laughed instead of being scared.

"Is that a man's cub?" asked Mother Wolf. "Bring him here."

Father Wolf gently picked up the baby with his mouth, careful not to hurt him at all, and set him down among the wolf cubs.

"How small! How brave!" said Mother Wolf. The baby pushed his way in with the other cubs to get warm. "This is a man's cub, and he is not afraid of us at all!"

Just then, the moonlight was blocked. Shere Khan's huge head appeared at the mouth of the cave!

"That is my prey," growled Shere Khan. "The man's cub went this way. Give him to me!"

But the cave entrance was too small for the tiger to fully enter.

"The Wolves are free," said Father Wolf. "We take orders from our Pack leader, not from you. The man's cub belongs to us now."

Shere Khan roared in anger. But Mother Wolf jumped forward bravely.

"I am Raksha, which means 'The Demon,'" she said fiercely. "The man's cub is mine now! He will grow up with our Pack. One day, he will hunt YOU, Shere Khan! Now go away, you burned, lame beast!"

Shere Khan knew he could not beat Mother Wolf here, in her own cave. So he backed away, growling, "We will see what the Pack says about this! The cub will be mine one day!"

After he left, Father Wolf asked, "Will you really keep this man's cub?"

"Yes!" said Mother Wolf. "He came here alone, hungry, and afraid of nothing! I will call him Mowgli, which means 'Frog,' because he is small and slippery like one. Someday, Mowgli will hunt Shere Khan, just as Shere Khan hunted him tonight."

But there was still a problem. The Law of the Jungle said that all wolf cubs must be shown to the whole Wolf Pack. The Pack would meet once a month, under the full moon, at a place called Council Rock. There, the wolves would decide if the cubs could stay.

If Mowgli passed this test, he could run free with the wolves. But first, he had to be accepted by all of them—including the powerful Pack leader, a great gray wolf named Akela.