would have run off to the Waingunga while the villagers here hunted
through all our lairs in revenge! Keep him? Assuredly I will keep
him. Lie still, little frog. O thou Mowgli--for Mowgli the Frog I
will call thee--the time will come when thou wilt hunt Shere Khan as
he has hunted thee.' 'But what will our Pack say?' said Father Wolf.
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. After that inspection
the cubs are free to run where they please, and until they have
killed their first buck no excuse is accepted if a grown wolf of the
Pack kills one of them. The punishment is death where the murderer
can be found; and if you think for a minute you will see that this
must be so. Father Wolf waited till his cubs could run a little, and
then on the night of the Pack Meeting took them and Mowgli and Mother
Wolf to the Council Rock--a hilltop covered with stones and boulders
where a hundred wolves could hide. Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf,
who led all the Pack by strength and cunning, lay out at full length
on his rock, and below him sat forty or more wolves of every size and
colour, from badger-coloured veterans who could handle a buck alone,
to young black three-year-olds who thought they could. The Lone Wolf
had led them for a year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf-trap in
his youth, and once he had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew
the manners and customs of men. There was very little talking at the
rock. The cubs tumbled over each other in the centre of the circle
where their mothers and fathers sat, and 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. Sometimes a mother would push her cub
far out into the moonlight, to be sure that he had not been