lves suffer terribly from thorns and burs in their
coats. 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, to sleep all
through the drowsy day, and at night see how Bagheera did his
killing. Bagheera killed right and left as he felt hungry, and so did
Mowgli--with one exception. As soon as he was old enough to understand
things, 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. "All the jungle
is thine," said Bagheera, "and thou canst kill everything that thou art
strong enough to kill; but for the sake of the bull that bought thee
thou must never kill or eat any cattle young or old. That is the Law of
the Jungle." Mowgli obeyed faithfully.

And he 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.

Mother Wolf told him once or twice that Shere Khan was not a creature
to be trusted, and that some day he must kill Shere Khan. But though a
young wolf would have remembered that advice every hour, Mowgli forgot
it because he was only a boy--though he would have called himself a wolf
if he had been able to speak in any human tongue.

Shere Khan was always crossing his path in the jungle, for as Akela grew
older and feebler the lame tiger had come to be great friends with the
younger wolves of the Pack, who followed him for scraps, a thing Akela
would never have allowed if he had dared to push his authority to the
proper bounds. Then Shere Khan would flatter them and wonder that such
fine young hunters were content to be led by a dying wolf and a man's
cub. "They tell me," Shere Khan would say, "that at Council ye dare
not look him between the eyes." And the young wolves would growl and
bristle.

Bagheera, who had eyes and ears everywhere, knew something of this, and
once or twice he told Mowgli in so many words that Shere Khan would kill
him some day. Mowgli would laugh and answer: "I have the Pack and I have
thee; and Baloo, though he is so lazy, might strike a blow or two for my
sake. Why should I