ooked at him he would run. But
on his one Night he goes openly down to the village. He walks between
the houses and thrusts his head into the doorway, and the men fall on
their faces, and there he does his kill. One kill in that Night."

"Oh!" said Mowgli to himself, rolling over in the water. "NOW I see
why it was Shere Khan bade me look at him! He got no good of it, for he
could not hold his eyes steady, and--and I certainly did not fall down
at his feet. But then I am not a man, being of the Free People."

"Umm!" said Bagheera deep in his furry throat. "Does the Tiger know his
Night?"

"Never till the Jackal of the Moon stands clear of the evening
mist. Sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the wet
rains--this one Night of the Tiger. But for the First of the Tigers,
this would never have been, nor would any of us have known fear."

The deer grunted sorrowfully and Bagheera's lips curled in a wicked
smile. "Do men know this--tale?" said he.

"None know it except the tigers, and we, the elephants--the children of
Tha. Now ye by the pools have heard it, and I have spoken."

Hathi dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish to
talk.

"But--but--but," said Mowgli, turning to Baloo, "why did not the First
of the Tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees? He did but
break the buck's neck. He did not EAT. What led him to the hot meat?"

"The trees and the creepers marked him, Little Brother, and made him
the striped thing that we see. Never again would he eat their fruit;
but from that day he revenged himself upon the deer, and the others, the
Eaters of Grass," said Baloo.

"Then THOU knowest the tale. Heh? Why have I never heard?"

"Because the Jungle is full of such tales. If I made a beginning there
would never be an end to them. Let go my ear, Little Brother."

THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE

Just to give you an idea of the immense variety of the Jungle Law,
I have translated into verse (Baloo always recited them in a sort of
sing-song) a few of the laws that apply to the wolves. There are, of
course, hundreds and hundreds more, but these will do for specimens of
the simpler rulings.

Now this is the Law of the Jungle--as old and as true as
the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf
that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth
forward and back--
For th