me behind
bars from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera--the
Panther--and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one
blow of my paw and came away. And because I had learned the ways of men,
I became more terrible in the jungle than Shere Khan. Is it not so?"

"Yes," said Mowgli, "all the jungle fear Bagheera--all except Mowgli."

"Oh, thou art a man's cub," said the Black Panther very tenderly. "And
even as I returned to my jungle, so thou must go back to men at last--to
the men who are thy brothers--if thou art not killed in the Council."

"But why--but why should any wish to kill me?" said Mowgli.

"Look at me," said Bagheera. And Mowgli looked at him steadily between
the eyes. The big panther turned his head away in half a minute.

"That is why," he said, shifting his paw on the leaves. "Not even I can
look thee between the eyes, and I was born among men, and I love thee,
Little Brother. The others they hate thee because their eyes cannot meet
thine; because thou art wise; because thou hast pulled out thorns from
their feet--because thou art a man."

"I did not know these things," said Mowgli sullenly, and he frowned
under his heavy black eyebrows.

"What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue. By
thy very carelessness they know that thou art a man. But be wise. It is
in my heart that when Akela misses his next kill--and at each hunt
it costs him more to pin the buck--the Pack will turn against him and
against thee. They will hold a jungle Council at the Rock, and then--and
then--I have it!" said Bagheera, leaping up. "Go thou down quickly to
the men's huts in the valley, and take some of the Red Flower which they
grow there, so that when the time comes thou mayest have even a stronger
friend than I or Baloo or those of the Pack that love thee. Get the Red
Flower."

By Red Flower Bagheera meant fire, only no creature in the jungle will
call fire by its proper name. Every beast lives in deadly fear of it,
and invents a hundred ways of describing it.

"The Red Flower?" said Mowgli. "That grows outside their huts in the
twilight. I will get some."

"There speaks the man's cub," said Bagheera proudly. "Remember that it
grows in little pots. Get one swiftly, and keep it by thee for time of
need."

"Good!" said Mowgli. "I go. But art thou sure, O my Bagheera"--he
slipped his arm around the splendid neck and looked deep into the big
eyes--"art thou sure that