done.'

'Little Brother, it is well done,' said a deep voice in the thicket.
'We were lonely in the jungle without thee,' and Bagheera came
running to Mowgli's bare feet. They clambered up the Council Rock
together, and Mowgli spread the skin out on the flat stone where
Akela used to sit, and pegged it down with four slivers of bamboo,
and Akela lay down upon it, and called the old call to the Council,
'Look, look well, O Wolves,' exactly as he had called when Mowgli
was first brought there.

Ever since Akela had been deposed, the Pack had been without a
leader, hunting and fighting at their own pleasure. But they
answered the call from habit; and some of them were lame from the
traps they had fallen into, and some limped from shot-wounds, and
some were mangy from eating bad food, and many were missing; but they
came to the Council Rock, all that were left of them, and saw Shere
Khan's striped hide on the rock, and the huge claws dangling at the
end of the empty dangling feet.

'Look well, O Wolves. Have I kept my word?' said Mowgli; and the
wolves bayed Yes, and one tattered wolf howled:--

'Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O man-cub, for we be sick of
this lawlessness, and we would be the Free People once more.'

'Nay,' purred Bagheera, 'that may not be. When ye are full fed, the
madness may come upon you again. Not for nothing are ye called the
Free People. Ye fought for freedom, and it is yours. Eat it, O
Wolves.'

'Man-Pack and Wolf-Pack have cast me out,' said Mowgli. 'Now I will
hunt alone in the jungle.'

'And we will hunt with thee,' said the four cubs.

So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from
that day on. But he was not always alone, because, years afterward,
he became a man and married.

But that is a story for grown-ups.

MOWGLI'S SONG

THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE DANCED ON SHERE KHAN'S HIDE.

The Song of Mowgli--I, Mowgli am singing. Let the
jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would kill--would kill! At the gates
in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, the Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for when
wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream of the kill.
I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother come to me!
Come to me, Lone Wolf, for there is big game afoot!
Bring up the great bull-buffaloes, the blue-skinned herd-bulls
with the angry eyes. Drive them to and fro as I order.
Slee