Chapter-1
The father wolf woke up at seven o’clock on a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills. He scratched himself, yawned and spread out his paws to feel the evening cool breeze. The mother wolf was lying in the other end of the cave with the four cubs sleeping next to her.
The father wolf got up and moved out of the cave to hunt some food for the family. He was running downhill when he saw a little shadow with a bushy tail. He sensed some danger. A voice came from behind the leaves, “Good luck goes with you, O chief of the wolves.”
It was the most unliked animal of the jungle, Tabaqui—the jackal. Everyone in the jungle hated Tabaqui because he ran about making mischief, and telling tales, and eating the rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish. But the villagers and animals were afraid of him too.
Even though there was no food around for the wolf family Tabaqui manaaged to find himself a dry bone of a buck with some meat on it and sat near the cave licking it with pleasure.
Actually, Tabaqui had come to spread the news about Shere Khan, the tiger, who lived near River Waingunga, twenty miles away. Tabaqui was one of Shere Khan’s loyal servants. Being big and powerful than other animals, he used to trouble the forest animals and the nearby villagers. He used to hunt down the cattle of the villagers.
Tabaqui then said, “Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon.”
The wolf asked Tabaqui to leave at once.
The father wolf listened calmly. Below in the valley that ran down to a little river he heard the dry, angry, snarly singsong whine of a tiger who had caught nothing and did not care if all the jungle knew it.
The whine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the forest. The mother wolf then suddenly realized that it was the sound of a man.
“Man!” said the father wolf, showing all his white teeth.
The sound grew louder, and ended in the full-throated “Aaarh!” of the tiger’s charge.
The father wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan muttering and mumbling savagely as he tumbled about in the scrub and then saw Tabaqui standing beside him.
The mother wolf sensed the noise of someone coming uphill. The noise grew louder and louder. Suddenly, a little man’s child came out of the bushes.
“Man!” the mother wolf said, “A man’s cub!”
Listening to this the father wolf came back running towards the cave.
“Is that a man’s cub?” said the mother wolf, “I have never seen one. Bring it here.”
It was little brown baby with no clothes on and could just walk. He looked up into the father wolf’s face, and laughed.
The father wolf picked the man’s cub with his teeth and took him inside the cave. The baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm hide. He was trying to take his meal with the others. And so that was a man’s cub. Was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man’s cub among his children?
Suddenly, Shere Khan entered and stood in front of the cave blocking the entrance along with Tabaqui.
“Shere Khan does us great honour,” said the father wolf, “What does Shere Khan need?”
Shere Khan’s eyes were very angry.
Shere Khan said, “A man’s cub went this way. His parents have run off. Give him to me.”
The father wolf knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in. The father wolf refused to obey Shere Khan’s orders and denied him giving the man’s cub. The tiger’s roar filled the cave with thunder. The mother wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.
“The man’s cub is mine; he shall not be killed. He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack,” said the mother wolf.
Shere Khan might have faced the father wolf, but he could not stand up against the mother wolf, for he knew that where he was. She had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death. So, he backed out of the cave mouth growling, and when he was clear he shouted. Shere Khan could not do anything; he shouted loudly and left the place.
The father wolf said, “The cub must be shown to the Pack. Will they keep him, dear?”
“The law of the jungle lays down very clearly that any wolf may, when he marries, withdraw from the Pack he belongs to. But as soon as his cubs are old enough to stand on their feet he must bring them to the Pack Council, which is generally held once a month at full moon, in order that the other wolves may identify them,” observed the father wolf.
The mother wolf was not interested in hearing all this. Instead, she was pleased that she had got a name for her new baby—Mowgli. The father wolf waited till his cubs could run a little. On the night of the Pack Meeting, he took them and Mowgli and the mother wolf to the Council Rock—a hilltop covered with stones and boulders where a hundred wolves could hide. Akela, the great grey lone wolf used to lead the Pack, was standing on the rock. Below him there sat more than forty wolves of every size and colour. The cubs tumbled over one another in the centre of the circle where their mothers and fathers sat. Now and again, a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet.
The father wolf pushed ‘Mowgli,’ as they called him, into the centre, where he sat laughing and playing with some pebbles.
There was complete silence around the rock when suddenly Shere Khan roared from behind, “The cub is mine. Give him to me.” Akela wanted the opinions of the two members of the Pack apart from the mother and the father of the cub whether to keep Mowgli in the Pack or not. Suddenly, Baloo, the sleepy brown bear who taught the wolf cubs the law of the jungle, came forward. Baloo was the only other creature in the Pack and was totally vegetarian as he had only nuts, roots and honey.
He said, “I am in favour of keeping the man’s cub in the Pack. There is no harm in keeping him. I myself will teach him.”
Akela needed another candidate to speak in favour of keeping the man’s cub. A black panther, inky black all over, entered the area. It was Bagheera. Nobody in the Pack cared to cross his path ever. He as too strong for the wolves but was as polite as honey dripping from a tree.
Bagheera said, “I have no right to speak in this assembly but to kill a naked cub is shame. Is it really that much difficult to accept a man’s cub?”
Akela thought for a while and then in a firm voice accepted Mowgli’s entry to the Pack. All the wolves roared as greeting to the new member. But Mowgli was interested in the pebbles and he did not notice when the wolves came and looked at him one by one. Akela said nothing. He was thinking of the time that comes to every leader of every Pack when his strength goes out of him and he gets feebler and feebler, till at last he is killed by the wolves and a new leader comes up—to be killed in his turn.
“Take him away,” Akela said to the father wolf, “and train him as well as you can.” And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Seeonee Wolf Pack.
During the next 10-12 years Mowgli grew among the wolves and their cubs and was taught most of tactics about hunting and other laws of the jungle. He also learned to catch fish in the pool with his hands. Bagheera and Baloo were his best pals. When he was not learning the wolf life he used to spend time with them. Baloo used to teach him to get honey from trees and Bagheera used to make him run as fast as he could and climb on trees as fast as possible.
Mowgli used to attend all the Pack meetings but never had any interest of doing so and was always punished for his mischiefs and troubles. He would go down the hillside into the cultivated lands by night, and look very curiously at the villagers in their huts. But he had a mistrust of men because Bagheera showed him a square box with a drop gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that he nearly walked into it, and told him that it was a trap.
He loved better than anything else to go with Bagheera into the dark warm heart of the forest. Bagheera told him that he must never touch cattle because he had been bought into the Pack at the price of a bull’s life.
Mowgli grew and grew strong as a boy must grow who does not know that he is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to eat. Bagheera always knew that whenever Shere Khan would get a chance he would try to kill Mowgli. He had told this to Mowgli even but he never paid so much attention to his words.
