The Jungle Book 2 page

the jungle will call fire by its proper name. Every beast lives

in deadly fear of it, and invents a hundred ways of describ-

ing it.

‘The Red Flower?’ said Mowgli. ‘That grows outside their

huts in the twilight. I will get some.’

‘There speaks the man’s cub,’ said Bagheera proudly.

‘Remember that it grows in little pots. Get one swiftly, and

keep it by thee for time of need.’

‘Good!’ said Mowgli. ‘I go. But art thou sure, O my Ba-

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gheera’—he slipped his arm around the splendid neck and

looked deep into the big eyes—‘art thou sure that all this is

Shere Khan’s doing?’

‘By the Broken Lock that freed me, I am sure, Little

Brother.’

‘Then, by the Bull that bought me, I will pay Shere Khan

full tale for this, and it may be a little over,’ said Mowgli, and

he bounded away.

‘That is a man. That is all a man,’ said Bagheera to him-

self, lying down again. ‘Oh, Shere Khan, never was a blacker

hunting than that frog-hunt of thine ten years ago!’

Mowgli was far and far through the forest, running

hard, and his heart was hot in him. He came to the cave as

the evening mist rose, and drew breath, and looked down

the valley. The cubs were out, but Mother Wolf, at the back

of the cave, knew by his breathing that something was trou-

bling 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 down-

ward 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

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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 crop-

lands 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 noth-

ing 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

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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 Flow-

er, 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.’

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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 weak-

ness 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 sea-

sons. 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?’ clam-

ored Shere Khan. ‘No, give him to me. He is a man, and

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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 some-

thing 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, un-

der 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

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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, wolf-

like, the wolves had never told him how they hated him.

‘Listen you!’ he cried. ‘There is no need for this dog’s jab-

ber. 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 broth-

ers 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

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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 be-

tween any of us in the Pack. But here is a debt to pay before

I go.’ He strode forward to where Shere Khan sat blink-

ing 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,

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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, Ba-

gheera?’

‘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 hencefor-

ward. 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 fare-

well 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.’

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‘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.

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Hunting-Song of

the Seeonee Pack

As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur bel ed

Once, twice and again!

And a doe leaped up, and a doe leaped up

From the pond in the wood where the wild deer sup.

This I, scouting alone, beheld,

Once, twice and again!

As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur bel ed

Once, twice and again!

And a wolf stole back, and a wolf stole back

To carry the word to the waiting pack,

And we sought and we found and we bayed on his track

Once, twice and again!

As the dawn was breaking the Wolf Pack yel ed

Once, twice and again!

Feet in the jungle that leave no mark!

Eyes that can see in the dark—the dark!

Tongue—give tongue to it! Hark! O hark!

Once, twice and again!

Kaa’s Hunting

His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the

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Buffalo’s pride.

Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the

gloss of his hide.

If ye find that the Bul ock can toss you, or the heavy-browed

Sambhur can gore;

Ye need not stop work to inform us: we knew it ten seasons

before.

Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister

and Brother,

For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is

their mother.

‘There is none like to me!’ says the Cub in the pride of his

earliest kil ;

But the jungle is large and the Cub he is smal . Let him

think and be stil .

Maxims of Baloo

All that is told here happened some time before Mow-

gli was turned out of the Seeonee Wolf Pack, or revenged

himself on Shere Khan the tiger. It was in the days when

Baloo was teaching him the Law of the Jungle. The big, seri-

ous, old brown bear was delighted to have so quick a pupil,

for the young wolves will only learn as much of the Law of

the Jungle as applies to their own pack and tribe, and run

away as soon as they can repeat the Hunting Verse —‘Feet

that make no noise; eyes that can see in the dark; ears that

can hear the winds in their lairs, and sharp white teeth, all

these things are the marks of our brothers except Tabaqui

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the Jackal and the Hyaena whom we hate.’ But Mowgli, as

a man-cub, had to learn a great deal more than this. Some-

times Bagheera the Black Panther would come lounging

through the jungle to see how his pet was getting on, and

would purr with his head against a tree while Mowgli re-

cited the day’s lesson to Baloo. The boy could climb almost

as well as he could swim, and swim almost as well as he

could run. So Baloo, the Teacher of the Law, taught him the

Wood and Water Laws: how to tell a rotten branch from a

sound one; how to speak politely to the wild bees when he

came upon a hive of them fifty feet above ground; what to

say to Mang the Bat when he disturbed him in the branches

at midday; and how to warn the water-snakes in the pools

before he splashed down among them. None of the Jungle

People like being disturbed, and all are very ready to fly at

an intruder. Then, too, Mowgli was taught the Strangers’

Hunting Call, which must be repeated aloud till it is an-

swered, whenever one of the Jungle-People hunts outside

his own grounds. It means, translated, ‘Give me leave to

hunt here because I am hungry.’ And the answer is, ‘Hunt

then for food, but not for pleasure.’

All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn

by heart, and he grew very tired of saying the same thing

over a hundred times. But, as Baloo said to Bagheera, one

day when Mowgli had been cuffed and run off in a temper,

‘A man’s cub is a man’s cub, and he must learn all the Law

of the Jungle.’

‘But think how small he is,’ said the Black Panther, who

would have spoiled Mowgli if he had had his own way. ‘How

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can his little head carry all thy long talk?’

‘Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No.

That is why I teach him these things, and that is why I hit

him, very softly, when he forgets.’

‘Softly! What dost thou know of softness, old Iron-feet?’

Bagheera grunted. ‘His face is all bruised today by thy—

softness. Ugh.’

‘Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me

who love him than that he should come to harm through

ignorance,’ Baloo answered very earnestly. ‘I am now teach-

ing him the Master Words of the Jungle that shall protect

him with the birds and the Snake People, and all that hunt

on four feet, except his own pack. He can now claim pro-

tection, if he will only remember the words, from all in the

jungle. Is not that worth a little beating?’

‘Well, look to it then that thou dost not kill the man-

cub. He is no tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon.

But what are those Master Words? I am more likely to give

help than to ask it’ —Bagheera stretched out one paw and

admired the steel-blue, ripping-chisel talons at the end of

it—‘still I should like to know.’

‘I will call Mowgli and he shall say them—if he will.

Come, Little Brother!’

‘My head is ringing like a bee tree,’ said a sullen little

voice over their heads, and Mowgli slid down a tree trunk

very angry and indignant, adding as he reached the ground:

‘I come for Bagheera and not for thee, fat old Baloo!’

‘That is all one to me,’ said Baloo, though he was hurt

and grieved. ‘Tell Bagheera, then, the Master Words of the

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Jungle that I have taught thee this day.’

‘Master Words for which people?’ said Mowgli, delight-

ed to show off. ‘The jungle has many tongues. I know them

all.’‘A little thou knowest, but not much. See, O Bagheera,

they never thank their teacher. Not one small wolfling has

ever come back to thank old Baloo for his teachings. Say the

word for the Hunting-People, then—great scholar.’

‘We be of one blood, ye and I,’ said Mowgli, giving the

words the Bear accent which all the Hunting People use.

‘Good. Now for the birds.’

Mowgli repeated, with the Kite’s whistle at the end of the

sentence.

‘Now for the Snake-People,’ said Bagheera.

The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mow-

gli kicked up his feet behind, clapped his hands together to

applaud himself, and jumped on to Bagheera’s back, where

he sat sideways, drumming with his heels on the glossy skin

and making the worst faces he could think of at Baloo.

‘There—there! That was worth a little bruise,’ said the

brown bear tenderly. ‘Some day thou wilt remember me.’

Then he turned aside to tell Bagheera how he had begged the

Master Words from Hathi the Wild Elephant, who knows

all about these things, and how Hathi had taken Mowgli

down to a pool to get the Snake Word from a water-snake,

because Baloo could not pronounce it, and how Mowgli was

now reasonably safe against all accidents in the jungle, be-

cause neither snake, bird, nor beast would hurt him.

‘No one then is to be feared,’ Baloo wound up, patting his

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big furry stomach with pride.

‘Except his own tribe,’ said Bagheera, under his breath;

and then aloud to Mowgli, ‘Have a care for my ribs, Little

Brother! What is all this dancing up and down?’

Mowgli had been trying to make himself heard by pull-

ing at Bagheera’s shoulder fur and kicking hard. When

the two listened to him he was shouting at the top of his

voice, ‘And so I shall have a tribe of my own, and lead them

through the branches all day long.’

‘What is this new folly, little dreamer of dreams?’ said

Bagheera.

‘Yes, and throw branches and dirt at old Baloo,’ Mowgli

went on. ‘They have promised me this. Ah!’

‘Whoof!’ Baloo’s big paw scooped Mowgli off Bagheera’s

back, and as the boy lay between the big fore-paws he could

see the Bear was angry.

‘Mowgli,’ said Baloo, ‘thou hast been talking with the

Bandar-log—the Monkey People.’

Mowgli looked at Bagheera to see if the Panther was an-

gry too, and Bagheera’s eyes were as hard as jade stones.

‘Thou hast been with the Monkey People—the gray

apes—the people without a law—the eaters of everything.

That is great shame.’

‘When Baloo hurt my head,’ said Mowgli (he was still

on his back), ‘I went away, and the gray apes came down

from the trees and had pity on me. No one else cared.’ He

snuffled a little.

‘The pity of the Monkey People!’ Baloo snorted. ‘The

stillness of the mountain stream! The cool of the summer

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sun! And then, man-cub?’

‘And then, and then, they gave me nuts and pleasant

things to eat, and they—they carried me in their arms up to

the top of the trees and said I was their blood brother except

that I had no tail, and should be their leader some day.’

‘They have no leader,’ said Bagheera. ‘They lie. They have

always lied.’

‘They were very kind and bade me come again. Why have

I never been taken among the Monkey People? They stand

on their feet as I do. They do not hit me with their hard

paws. They play all day. Let me get up! Bad Baloo, let me up!

I will play with them again.’

‘Listen, man-cub,’ said the Bear, and his voice rumbled

like thunder on a hot night. ‘I have taught thee all the Law

of the Jungle for all the peoples of the jungle—except the

Monkey-Folk who live in the trees. They have no law. They

are outcasts. They have no speech of their own, but use the

stolen words which they overhear when they listen, and

peep, and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not

our way. They are without leaders. They have no remem-

brance. They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a

great people about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the

falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is for-

gotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do

not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the

monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die

where they die. Hast thou ever heard me speak of the Ban-

dar-log till today?’

‘No,’ said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very

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still now Baloo had finished.

‘The Jungle-People put them out of their mouths and out

of their minds. They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless,

and they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed

by the Jungle People. But we do not notice them even when

they throw nuts and filth on our heads.’

He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs

spattered down through the branches; and they could hear

coughings and howlings and angry jumpings high up in the

air among the thin branches.

‘The Monkey-People are forbidden,’ said Baloo, ‘forbid-

den to the Jungle-People. Remember.’

‘Forbidden,’ said Bagheera, ‘but I still think Baloo should

have warned thee against them.’

‘I—I? How was I to guess he would play with such dirt.

The Monkey People! Faugh!’

A fresh shower came down on their heads and the two

trotted away, taking Mowgli with them. What Baloo had

said about the monkeys was perfectly true. They belonged to

the tree-tops, and as beasts very seldom look up, there was

no occasion for the monkeys and the Jungle-People to cross

each other’s path. But whenever they found a sick wolf, or

a wounded tiger, or bear, the monkeys would torment him,

and would throw sticks and nuts at any beast for fun and in

the hope of being noticed. Then they would howl and shriek

senseless songs, and invite the Jungle-People to climb up

their trees and fight them, or would start furious battles

over nothing among themselves, and leave the dead mon-

keys where the Jungle-People could see them. They were

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always just going to have a leader, and laws and customs

of their own, but they never did, because their memories

would not hold over from day to day, and so they compro-

mised things by making up a saying, ‘What the Bandar-log

think now the jungle will think later,’ and that comforted

them a great deal. None of the beasts could reach them, but

on the other hand none of the beasts would notice them,

and that was why they were so pleased when Mowgli came

to play with them, and they heard how angry Baloo was.

They never meant to do any more—the Bandar-log nev-

er mean anything at all; but one of them invented what

seemed to him a brilliant idea, and he told all the others

that Mowgli would be a useful person to keep in the tribe,

because he could weave sticks together for protection from

the wind; so, if they caught him, they could make him teach

them. Of course Mowgli, as a woodcutter’s child, inherited

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 850