THE JUNGLE BOOK:THE STORY OF MOWGLI AND SHERE KHAN

Based on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle BookAdapted by Electric Type

Illustrated by Nigel Buchanan

I. MOWGLI THE FROG – 3 pages (1 text, 2 illo)

--MAIN MENU-- (fades into ILLO #1)

It was a warm, sticky evening in the jungle when Father and Mother Wolf woke from their day’s rest. Mother Wolf nuzzled her cubs with her soft gray nose. A full moon shone its light into the mouth of the cave where they lived.

Outside the cave, Father Wolf heard a familiar and savage howl from the nearby hills. It was Shere Kahn the Tiger, the jungle’s most ferocious hunter. Earlier that night, Shere Kahn had scared away his prey, an unlucky family who had camped near the jungle’s edge. The Tiger had scouted the jungle, cursing angrily as he tumbled around in the scrub for the family’s smallest member—a baby, a man-cub.

Moments later, Father Wolf heard a suspicious rustling. What he found surprised him so much, he nearly shot straight up in the air. Directly in front of him, holding on to a branch, stood a baby. The child looked into Father Wolf’s eyes without fear and giggled at him.

--PAGE 1-- (ILLO, pan from ILLO #1)

“Is that a man’s cub?” said Mother Wolf as she stepped out of the cave. “I have never seen one. Bring it over here.”

Father Wolf brought the man-cub into the cave. The other wolves stared at the baby in wonder.

--PAGE 2-- (ILLO #2)

Just then the cave went dark, for Shere Khan’s great square head and shoulders blocked the moonlight from its entrance.

“That man-cub is mine,” said Shere Khan, his roar filling the cave with thunder. “His parents have run off without him. Give him to me. He is to be eaten, and eaten he shall be!”

--PAGE 3-- (TEXT)

“We do not take orders from you,” said Father Wolf. “The man-cub is ours. We found him.”

Shere Khan let out another furious roar.

Mother Wolf sprang forward, protecting her cubs and the baby. “The man-cub is ours. He shall run with the Pack and hunt with the Pack.”

“You have made a mistake in crossing me, wolves,” said the mighty tiger.

Shere Khan bared his sharp white teeth, let out a final roar, and left the cave as quickly as he appeared.

The man-cub stirred and began to cry.

“Lie still, little frog. Mowgli the Frog, I’ll call you, for you are little, like a frog. The time will come when you will hunt Shere Khan as he has hunted you,” said Mother Wolf.

II. THE BANDAR-LOG – 9 pages (6 text, 3 illo)

--PAGE 4-- (TEXT)

Ten years passed, and Mowgli, now as tall as a baby elephant, was a citizen of the jungle. Shere Khan had not further disturbed Mowgli or the wolves, but the great tiger’s threat remained.

To protect Mowgli from danger, Father and Mother Wolf called on Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Black Panther to teach Mowgli the Law of the Jungle.

On this day, Mowgli had spent hours with Baloo, repeating the Master Words of the Jungle, a special call that would protect him from all things with four feet, as well as the birds and the snakes. Whenever Mowgli stumbled on his wild animal calls, Baloo would rap him on the head with his paw.

“Wrong,” said Baloo. “Say it again.”

But Mowgli was tired from his lessons, so he ran away from the big bear.

Baloo was left to sit on an old log in the clearing as an inky dark shadow dropped down from the branches. It was Bagheera. He was as bold as a wild buffalo and as reckless as a frightened elephant, but he loved Mowgli.

--PAGE 5-- (ILLO #3)

Baloo called to Mowgli: “Show Bagheera your Master Words of the Jungle!”

“No! My head is ringing like a bee-tree,” said a sullen little voice over their heads, as Mowgli slid down a tree trunk. “I came down to see Bagheera and not for you, fat old Baloo!”

“That is all fine to me,” said Baloo, though he was hurt. “Tell Bagheera, then, the Master Words of the Jungle that I have taught you.”

--PAGE 6-- (TEXT)

Mowgli perked up, as he was delighted at the chance to show off. “The jungle has many tongues. I know them all.”

“You know a little, but not much,” said Baloo. “Say the Master Words that will protect you from all creatures, great scholar.”

“We be of one blood, you and I,” said Mowgli, using the language of the bears.

“Good. Now for the birds.”

Mowgli repeated the phrase, with the hawk’s whistle at the end of the sentence.

“Now for the snakes,” said Bagheera.

The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his feet and clapped his hands together to applaud himself. He jumped on to Bagheera’s back, where he sat sideways, drumming with his heels on the Panther’s glossy skin and making the worst faces he could at Baloo.

--PAGE 7-- (TEXT)

“Now he can talk to anyone,” said Baloo. “No animal is to be feared!”

“I don’t fear anyone!” said Mowgli. “And so I shall have a tribe of my own, and lead them through the bush all day long. I shall throw branches and dirt at old Baloo!”

“What are you talking about?” said Bagheera.

“They have promised me this!” said Mowgli.

“Whoof!” Baloo cried. “Who has promised you this?” His big paw scooped Mowgli off Bagheera’s back. As the boy lay between Baloo’s big forepaws, he could see the Bear was angry. “Mowgli, have you been talking with the Bandar-log—the Monkey People?”

Mowgli could see Bagheera was angry as well, his eyes as hard as jade stones.

--PAGE 8-- (TEXT)

“When Baloo hurt my head during our lesson today, I ran up the tree, and the Gray Apes came down from the highest branches and took pity on me,” said Mowgli. “No one else cared.”

“Listen, man-cub,” said Baloo as his voice rumbled like thunder. “I have taught you the Law of the Jungle and how to speak like all of its citizens—everyone except for the Monkey Folk. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt.”

A shower of nuts and twigs spattered down from above. Baloo, Bagheera, and Mowgli could hear coughings and howlings and angry jumpings high up in the air among the thin branches.

“The Monkey People are forbidden,” said Baloo.

“Forbidden,” said Bagheera.

--PAGE 9-- (ILLO #4)

A fresh shower of twigs fell on their heads, and in an instant, Mowgli was snatched up by the Monkey Folk. He felt hands on his legs and arms—hard, strong, little hands—and then a swash of branches in his face. Below him, he could hear Baloo and Bagheera’s cries, but they could do nothing.

--PAGE 10-A-- (TEXT)

For a time, as he flew through the forest, Mowgli was afraid of being dropped. He grew angry, but knew better than to struggle. It was useless to look down, for he could only see the topsides of the branches, so he stared upward and far away in the blue. In the sky, he saw Rann the Kite, a hawk-like bird, balancing and wheeling as he kept watch over the jungle.

Rann saw that the monkeys were carrying something, so he descended a few hundred yards to find out whether their load would be good to eat. He whistled with surprise when he saw Mowgli being dragged up to a treetop.

“Mark my trail!” Mowgli shouted to Rann. “Tell Baloo and Bagheera where I am!”

Those were the last words he shrieked as he was swung through the air by the Monkey People.

--PAGE 10-B-- (TEXT)

Meanwhile, Baloo and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief. Bagheera climbed toward the monkeys as he had never climbed before, but the thin branches broke beneath his weight.

“Wait!” said Baloo. “The Bandar-log fear no one more than Kaa the Python. The whisper of his name makes their wicked tails cold. Let us go to Kaa for help.”

“He is very old and very cunning. Above all, he is always hungry,” said Bagheera.

--PAGE 11-- (ILLO #5)

Baloo and Bagheera found Kaa stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun. Kaa darted his big blunt-nosed head along the ground and twisted the thirty feet of his body into fantastic knots and curves, licking his lips as he thought of his dinner to come.

“Hello, Kaa!” cried Baloo, sitting up on his haunches.

“Oho, Baloo, what are you doing here? Hello to you too, Bagheera.”

--PAGE 12-A-- (TEXT)

“Those nut-stealers, the Bandar-log, have stolen our man-cub, and we know they fear Kaa alone,” Bagheera answered.

“The apes have good reason to fear me,” said Kaa as the big swallowing muscles of his throat rippled and bulged. “Now, where did they go with the cub?”

“Toward the sunset, I believe,” said Baloo. “We thought you would know where the monkeys live, Kaa.”

“Me? I take them when they come in my way, but I do not know where they live.”

--PAGE 12-B-- (TEXT)

“Up, up! Up, up! Hello! Look up, Baloo!” came a voice from above.

Baloo looked up to see Rann the Kite, sweeping down with the sun shining on his wings. He had traveled all over the jungle looking for Baloo.

“What is it?” asked Baloo.

“I have seen Mowgli among the Bandar-log,” cried Rann. “The monkeys have taken him beyond the river to their city, to the Cold Lairs. I have told the bats to watch through the night. That is my message. Good hunting, all you below!”

With that, he flew off.

III. THE LOST CITY – 9 pages (7 text, 4 illo)

--PAGE 13-- (ILLO #6)

In the Cold Lairs, the Monkey People were not thinking of Mowgli’s friends at all. They had brought the boy to the Lost City. Mowgli had never seen an Indian city before, and though this roofless palace was almost a heap of ruins, it seemed very wonderful and splendid.

--PAGE 14-- (TEXT)

Mowgli, however, who had been trained under the Law of the Jungle, did not understand their way of life. The monkeys had dragged him into the Cold Lairs late in the afternoon, and instead of resting, as Mowgli would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and danced about and sang foolish songs.

“I wish to eat,” said Mowgli. “I am a stranger in this part of the jungle. Bring me food or let me hunt here.”

Twenty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild pawpaws. But the monkeys fell to fighting on the road, and it was too much trouble to go back with what was left of the fruit.

All that Baloo had said about the Bandar-log was true, Mowgli thought. The monkeys had no law, no hunting call, and no leaders. They had nothing but foolish words and little picking, thievish hands.

Mowgli knew that if he starved or was killed here, it would be his own fault.

--PAGE 15-- (TEXT)

That night, when Mowgli walked to the city wall in hopes of escaping, the monkeys pulled him back, telling him he did not know how great and wise and strong and gentle they were, and how silly he was to wish to leave them. They sat around him in circles sixty deep.

Below the ruined walls, at the edge of the Cold Lairs, Bagheera, Baloo, and Kaa waited. They knew well how dangerous the Monkey People were in large numbers.

The Bear, the Panther, and the Snake agreed to split up.

“Good hunting,” Kaa said grimly, and glided away to the west wall.

An hour passed, and the moon hid behind a cloud, casting the ruins into darkness. Mowgli heard Bagheera’s light feet on the terrace, just outside the circle of monkeys.

--PAGE 16-- (ILLO #7)

The Panther had raced up the slope almost without a sound and was now striking right and left among the monkeys.

--PAGE 17-- (TEXT)

There was a howl of fright and rage, and then as Bagheera tripped on the rolling bodies beneath him, a monkey shouted to the others: “There is only one intruder here! Capture him!”

A scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing, and pulling, closed over Bagheera, while six laid hold of Mowgli, dragging him up the wall and pushing him through the hole of the palace’s broken dome.

“Stay there,” shouted the monkeys, “until we have captured your friends! Later we will play with you—if the Poison People leave you alive.”

When he landed on the ground, Mowgli saw he was surrounded by cobra snakes, hissing and rustling. Quickly, Mowgli remembered his lessons from Baloo about the Master Words of the Jungle.

--PAGE 18—(ILLO #8)

“We be of one blood, you and I,” said Mowgli, quickly giving the Snake’s call.

“Even ssso! Down hoods, all!” said half a dozen low hisses. “Ssstand ssstill, Little Brother, for your feet may do us harm.”

--PAGE 19—(TEXT)

The snakes retreated. Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the dome’s open ironwork and listening to the furious din of the fight around Bagheera—yells and chatterings and scufflings, and the Panther’s deep, hoarse cough as he bucked and twisted under heaps of his enemies. For the first time since he was born, Bagheera was fighting for his life.

“To the water, Bagheera. Roll to the reservoirs!” Mowgli called out. He knew from his lessons that the monkeys feared water, and this could be Bagheera’s only hope.

With new courage, Bagheera started working his way, inch by inch, to the reservoirs that lay beyond the terrace.

--PAGE 20-- (TEXT)

From the ruined wall nearest the jungle rose up the rumbling war-shout of Baloo. The Bear panted up the terrace only to disappear in a wave of monkeys. He threw himself squarely on his haunches, and spreading out his forepaws, hugged as many as he could hold. He began to hit with a regular bat-bat-bat, and the monkeys started to disperse.

A crash and a splash told Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the reservoir, where the monkeys could not follow. The Panther lay gasping for breath, his head just out of the water, while the monkeys stood three deep on the red steps, dancing up and down with anger, ready to spring upon him from all sides. Bagheera lifted his dripping chin, and in despair called out to Kaa, fearing that the Snake had given up at the last minute. Even Baloo, half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he heard the Panther crying out for help.

Kaa worked his way over the west wall. He had no intention of losing any advantage of the ground, and he coiled and uncoiled himself to be sure that every foot of his long body was in working order.

--PAGE 21-- (ILLO #9)

Kaa delivered his first fighting stroke into the heart of the crowd, the strength of a half-ton hammer driven by a cool, quiet mind.

The monkeys scattered with cries: “Kaa! It is Kaa! Run! Run!”

--PAGE 22-- (TEXT)

Kaa was everything the monkeys feared in the jungle, for none of them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look him in the face, and none had ever escaped alive from his grasp. They ran, stammering with terror, to the walls and the roofs of the houses, and Baloo drew in a deep breath of relief. His fur was much thicker than Bagheera’s, but he had suffered sorely in the fight.

Then Kaa opened his mouth for the first time and let out one long hiss. The monkeys stopped their cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city, Mowgli heard Bagheera shaking his wet sides as he came up from the water.

Upon Bagheera’s return, the clamor broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls. They clung around the necks of the big stone idols and shrieked as they skipped along the battlements, while Mowgli put his eye to the bars and hooted between his front teeth like an owl.

--PAGE 23-A-- (TEXT)

“Get Mowgli out of that trap! I can do no more!” Bagheera gasped.

Kaa looked carefully at the dome until he found a discolored crack in the marble. Lifting ten feet of his body, he sent home half a dozen smashing blows, nose-first. The stone broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubble. Mowgli jumped through the opening and flung himself between Baloo and Bagheera, an arm around each big neck.

“Are you hurt?” asked Baloo, hugging him softly.

“I am sore, hungry, and a little bruised. But Baloo, you look hurt.”

“It is nothing, it is nothing, if you are safe, oh, my pride of all little frogs!” whimpered Baloo.

--PAGE 23-B-- (TEXT)

“Of that we shall judge later,” said Bagheera in a dry voice that Mowgli did not like at all.

“I’m sorry,” said Mowgli. “I am a bad man-cub.”

“Now,” said Bagheera, “jump on my back, Little Brother, and we will go home.”

Mowgli laid his head down on Bagheera’s back and slept so deeply, he didn’t even stir when they reached the home cave.

IV. THE RED FLOWER – 8 pages (6 text, 3 illo)

--PAGE 24-- (TEXT)

Seven years had passed, and Mowgli was now seventeen. When he was not learning with his wolf-cub brothers and sisters, he sat out in the sun and slept and ate and went to sleep again. When he felt dirty or hot, he swam in the forest pools. When he wanted honey, he climbed for it.

As Mowgli learned more and more, every rustle in the grass, every breath of the warm night air, every note of the owl, every scratch of the bat’s claw, and every splash of every little fish meant something to him.

--PAGE 25-- (ILLO #10)

At night, Mowgli would occasionally go down the hillside into the cultivated lands, and look very curiously at the villagers in their huts. He had a mistrust of men ever since Bagheera showed him a square box with a drop gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that he had nearly walked into it. Bagheera told him that it was a man-made trap.

--PAGE 26-A-- (TEXT)

Mowgli had no lasting interest in men. He loved better than anything else to go with Bagheera into the dark warm heart of the forest and to sleep all through the drowsy day.

It was one very warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera. “Little Brother, how often have I told you that Shere Khan the Tiger is your enemy?” he said to Mowgli.

“As many times as there are nuts on that palm,” said Mowgli, who, naturally, could not count. “What of it? I am sleepy, Bagheera, and Shere Khan is all long tail and loud talk.”

“This is no time for sleeping,” Bagheera said. “Open those eyes, Little Brother. Shere Khan dare not kill you in the jungle while Mother and Father Wolf are there to protect you. But Shere Kahn has taught many of the younger wolves that a man-cub has no place with the Pack. In a little time, you will be a man.”

“I was born in the jungle. I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle, and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. The whole Pack is my family!” said Mowgli.

--PAGE 26-B-- (TEXT)

“Oh, you are a man’s cub,” said the Panther tenderly. “So you must go back to men—to the men who are your brothers—if you are not killed by Shere Khan.”

Mowgli frowned under his heavy black eyebrows.

“Unless,” said Bagheera, leaping up, “you go down to the men’s huts in the valley and take some of the Red Flower that they grow there, so that when the time comes you have a stronger friend than Baloo or me to protect you.”

By Red Flower, Bagheera meant fire. Every beast lives in deadly fear of it.

“The Red Flower?” asked Mowgli. “It grows in their huts in the twilight. I will get some.”

“Remember that it grows in little pots. Get one swiftly, and keep it by you for times of need,” said Bagheera.

“Good!” said Mowgli, and he bounded away.

--PAGE 27-- (TEXT)

That morning, Mowgli ran far through the forest. He plunged down through the bushes to the stream at the bottom of the valley, into the croplands where the villagers lived.

From the crops, Mowgli saw a man’s child pick up a wicker pot plastered inside with earth, fill it with lumps of red-hot charcoal, put it under his blanket, and go out to tend the cows.

“Is that all there is to the Red Flower?” said Mowgli. “If a cub can do it, there is nothing to fear.”

He strode around the corner and met the boy, took the pot from his hand, and disappeared into the mist while the boy howled with fear.

--PAGE 28 -- (ILLO #11)

“These men are very much like me,” said Mowgli, blowing into the pot as he had seen the boy do. “This will die if I do not give it things to eat.” He dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff, and the fire crackled to life.

--PAGE 29-A – (TEXT)

On his way home, Mowgli met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like moonstones on his coat.

Bagheera had some surprising news.

“Shere Kahn has convinced the young wolves to cast you out of the Pack,” said the Panther. “They believe you are trouble and that a man is no wolf. They were looking for you on the hill.”

Mother and Father Wolf were lying by the side of their rock, as Shere Khan and his following of young wolves walked to and fro. Bagheera lay close to Mowgli, and the fire pot was between Mowgli’s knees.

Shere Khan roared: “Wolves, Mowgli was my meat from the first. He has troubled the jungle for too long. Give me the man-cub, or I will hunt here always, and not give you one bone. He is a man, a man’s child, and from the marrow of my bones I hate him!”

--PAGE 29-B – (TEXT)

Father Wolf lifted his head and said, “He has eaten our food. He has slept with us. He has broken no Law of the Jungle.”

“No man’s cub can run with the people of the jungle,” howled Shere Khan, whose tail was beginning to twitch. “Give him to me!”

“There is no need for this dog’s jabber!” Mowgli cried. “You have told me so often that I am a man. So, I, the man, have brought you a little of the Red Flower, which all people of the jungle fear.”

He flung the fire pot on the ground, and some of the red coals lit a tuft of dried moss that flared up. The wolves and the Tiger drew back in terror before the leaping flames.

--PAGE 30 – (ILLO #12)

Mowgli thrust a branch into the fire until the twigs lit and crackled, and whirled it above his head. He strode forward to where Shere Khan sat blinking stupidly at the flames, and caught him by the tuft on his chin.

“Up, dog!” Mowgli cried. “Up, when a man speaks, or I will set that coat ablaze!”

Shere Khan’s ears lay flat back on his head, and he shut his eyes, for the blazing branch was very near.

--PAGE 31 -- (TEXT)

“Pah! Singed jungle cat—go now!” Mowgli cried.

The fire was burning furiously at the end of the branch, as Shere Kahn and his followers bounded away in terror. Now there was only Mother and Father Wolf, Bagheera, and ten wolves who had sided with Mowgli.

Something began to hurt Mowgli like he had never been hurt in his life before. He caught his breath and sobbed, and tears ran down his face.

“What is it?” he said. “I do not wish to leave the jungle, and I do not know what this is. Am I dying, Bagheera?”

“No, Little Brother. That is only tears such as men use,” said Bagheera. “Now I know you are a man, and a man’s cub no longer. The jungle is off-limits to you from now on. They are only tears, Mowgli. Let them fall.”

So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart would break.

--PAGE 32-A-- (TEXT)

“Now,” Mowgli finally said after a long time, “I will go to men. But first I must say farewell to my mother.”

He went to the cave, and he cried on his mother’s coat, while his four brother cubs howled miserably.

“You will not forget me?” said Mowgli.

“Never while we can follow a trail,” said the cubs. “Leave the village and come to the foot of the jungle, and we will talk to you, and we will come into the croplands to play with you by night.”

“Come soon!” said Father Wolf. “Oh, wise little frog, come again soon, for your mother and I are very old.”

“Come soon!” said Mother Wolf. “For, listen, son of mine, I loved you more than I ever loved my cubs.”

--PAGE 32-B-- (TEXT)

“I will surely come,” said Mowgli. “And when I come it will be to lay out Shere Khan’s hide. Do not forget me! Tell them in the jungle never to forget me!”

The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside alone, to meet those mysterious things called men.

V. THE VILLAGE – 6 pages (3 text, 2 illo)

--PAGE 33 -- (ILLO #13)

Mowgli left the wolf cave, keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley. He followed it until he came to a great plain. At one end stood a little village, and at the other, the thick jungle. All over the plain, cattle and buffalo were grazing.

--PAGE 34-A --

Mowgli walked on, for he was feeling hungry. When he came to the village gate, it was nearly twilight. He rapped his fist on the door. He groaned, for he had come across more than one such barricade in his night rambles after things to eat. He sat down by the gate, and when a man came out he stood up, opened his mouth, and pointed to show that he wanted food. The man stared, and ran back up the one street of the village, shouting for the priest, who was a big, fat man dressed in white, with a red and yellow mark on his forehead.

The priest came to the gate, and with him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked and shouted and pointed at Mowgli.

“They have no manners, these Men Folk,” said Mowgli to himself. “Only the Gray Ape would behave as they do.” He threw back his long hair and frowned at the crowd.

--PAGE 34-B --

“Look at the marks on his arms and legs,” said the priest. “They are the bites of wolves. He is a wolf-child run away from the jungle.”

In playing together, the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder than they intended, and there were white scars all over his arms and legs. But he would have been the last person in the world to call these bites.

“Arre! Arre!” gasped one woman. “To be bitten by wolves, poor child! He is a handsome boy. He has eyes like red fire.” She turned to Messua, one of the wealthiest women in the village. “Messua, he is not unlike your boy who was taken by the tiger.”

“Let me look,” said Messua, a woman with heavy copper rings on her wrists and ankles, as she peered at Mowgli. “Indeed. He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy.”

--PAGE 35-A-- (TEXT)

The crowd parted as Messua beckoned Mowgli to her hut.

Inside, there was a red lacquered bed, a great earthen grain chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking pots, an image of a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking glass, such as they sell at the country fairs. She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread.

Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before. But as he looked at the thatch, he saw that he could tear it out any time if he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings.

There was difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under anything that looked so much like a panther trap as that hut, so when Messua shut the door, he went through the window. Mowgli stretched himself out on some long, clean grass at the edge of the field, but before he had closed his eyes, a soft gray nose poked him under the chin.

--PAGE 35-B-- (TEXT)

“Phew!” said Gray Brother, the eldest of Mother Wolf’s cubs. “This is a poor reward for following you twenty miles. You smell of wood smoke and cattle—like a man already. Wake, Little Brother! I bring news.”

“Are all well in the jungle?” said Mowgli, hugging him.

“All except the wolves that were burned with the Red Flower. Shere Khan has gone far away to hunt until his coat grows again, for he is badly singed. When he returns, he swears he will kill you.”

“I am tired tonight, very tired with new things, Gray Brother, but bring me the news always.”

--PAGE 36 -- (ILLO #14) “You will not forget you are a wolf? Men will not make you forget?” said Gray Brother anxiously.

“Never. I will always remember that I love you and all in our cave.”

“When I come down here again, I will wait for you in the bamboo at the edge of the grazing-ground.”

VI. SHERE KHAN – 9 pages (6 text, 3 illo)

--PAGE 37-- (TEXT)

Three months passed, and Mowgli was so busy learning the language and ways and customs of men, he hardly ever left the village gate. He had to learn about money, which he did not understand, and about plowing, of which he did not see the use. The little children in the village also made him very angry. They made fun of him because he would not play games or fly kites, or because he mispronounced a word.

Soon it was time for Mowgli to work. The head of the village told Mowgli that he would have to go out with the buffaloes the next day and herd them while they grazed.

This pleased Mowgli, for he missed spending time with the other animals.

The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning, and to bring them back at night. An Indian grazing ground is all rocks and scrub and little ravines, among which the cattle scatter and disappear. The buffaloes keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing or basking in the warm mud for hours.

--PAGE 38-- (ILLO #15)

Climbing atop his favorite bull, Rama, Mowgli drove the herd on to the edge of the plain where the great wide Waingunga River came out of the jungle. He dropped from Rama’s neck, trotted off to a bamboo clump, and found Gray Brother.

--PAGE 39A-- (TEXT)

“Ah,” said Gray Brother, “I have waited here for many days. What is the meaning of this cattle herding?”

“It is an order,” said Mowgli. “I am a village herd for a while. What news of Shere Khan?”

“He has come back to this country, and has waited here a long time for you. Now he has gone off again, for the game is scarce. But he means to harm you.”

Mowgli had a plan. “So long as he is away,” he said, “you or one of the four brothers sit on that rock, so that I can see you as I come out of the village. When he comes back, wait for me in the ravine by the dhak tree. We need not walk into Shere Khan’s mouth.”

--PAGE 39B-- (TEXT)

Day after day, Mowgli would lead the buffalo and cattle out to their wallows, and would see one of his brother wolves perched a mile away on the rock. And day after day, Mowgli would lie on the grass listening to the noises around him, and dreaming of the old days in the jungle.

At last a day came when he did not see anyone at the signal place. He headed the herd to the ravine by the dhak tree. There sat Gray Brother.

“Shere Khan has hidden for a month to throw you off guard,” said the Wolf, panting, every bristle on his back lifted. “His plan is to wait for you at the village gate this evening. He is resting now, in the big dry ravine of the river.”

“If there were ten of us,” Mowgli said, “we might pull him down as he sleeps. These buffaloes will not charge unless they smell him. Can we get behind him so they may track his scent?”

--PAGE 40-- (TEXT)

“He swam far down the Waingunga to cut that off,” said Gray Brother.

Mowgli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking. “The big ravine of the Waingunga opens out on the plain not half a mile from here. I can take the herd around through the jungle to the head of the ravine and then sweep down—but he would slink out at the foot. We must block that end. Gray Brother, can you cut the herd in two for me?”

“Not I—but I have brought a wise helper,” said Gray Brother as he trotted off and dropped into a hole. There lifted up a huge gray head that Mowgli knew well, and the hot air was filled with the most desolate cry of all the jungle—the hunting howl of a wolf at midday.

“Father Wolf!” said Mowgli, clapping his hands. “I might have known that you would not forget me. Cut the herd in two, Father Wolf. Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls and the buffaloes by themselves.”

--PAGE 41-- (ILLO #16)

The two wolves ran in and out of the herd, which snorted and threw up its head, and separated into two clumps.

Again Mowgli slipped onto Rama’s back. “Drive the bulls away to the left, Father Wolf. Gray Brother, when we are gone, hold the cows together, and drive them into the foot of the ravine.”

--PAGE 42-- (TEXT)

The two wolves darted and directed the herd, giving Mowgli only a moment to address Shere Khan.

Mowgli shouted down the ravine. There came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a full-fed tiger just wakened.

“Who calls?” said Shere Khan.

“It is me, Mowgli. Tiger, your time has come! Down—hurry them down, Father Wolf!”

Father Wolf howled the full hunting yell, and the herd began to stampede down the slope.

--PAGE 43-- (ILLO #17)

Shere Khan heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and lumbered down the ravine. The Tiger looked from side to side for some way of escape, but the walls were straight and he had to hold on, heavy with a full stomach, willing to do anything rather than fight.

--PAGE 44-A-- (TEXT)

Father Wolf and Gray Brother ran to and fro, nipping at the buffaloes’ legs.

But Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was no longer alive.

The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the village, Mowgli saw lights and heard the conches and bells in the temple blowing and banging.

Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by the gate.

“That is because I have put an end to Shere Khan,” Mowgli said to himself.

--PAGE 44-B-- (TEXT)

But a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the villagers shouted: “Wolf’s brat! Jungle demon! Go away!”

“What is this?” said Mowgli as the villagers threw more stones. “Again I am cast out? Last time it was because I was a man! This time it is because they think I am a wolf!”

With stones thrown at their back, Mowgli, Father Wolf, and Gray Brother turned their tails around and started back through the stone-studded valley toward the jungle’s edge. It was time for Mowgli to return to the wolf cave.

VII. MOWGLI’S RETURN – 3 pages (1 text, 1 full illo, 1 spot illo)

--PAGE 45-- (ILLO #18)

The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the two wolves arrived at Mother Wolf’s cave.

“I am back, Mother,” shouted Mowgli as he bounded toward the familiar comforts of the dark, warm cave.

--PAGE 46-A-- (TEXT)

“They have cast me out from the Man-Pack, and I have rid the world of Shere Khan. I’ve come to return to my real home, the jungle, for good,” said Mowgli.

Mother Wolf, now old, walked stiffly from the cave, but her eyes glowed when she saw Mowgli.

“I told Shere Khan on the day Father Wolf found you, when he crammed his head and shoulders into this cave, hunting for your life, Little Frog—I told him that the hunter would be the hunted. We’re glad to have you back.”

“Little Brother, it is well done,” said a deep purr in the thicket. “We were lonely in the jungle without you.” Bagheera came running to Mowgli’s bare feet.

Baloo followed behind and gave Mowgli a bear-sized hug.

--PAGE 46-B-- (TEXT)

“Will you stay with us, Mowgli?” asked Mother Wolf. “There is still room in the cave for you.”

“No,” purred Bagheera. “There’s much for our man-cub to learn about the jungle. I think it best he hunt in the wild, away from wolf caves and villages alike.”

“Bagheera is right. I must go it alone in the jungle. I must find out who I am—something between a wolf and a man,” said Mowgli.

“And we will go with you,” said Mowgli’s brother cubs.

--PAGE 46-C-- (TEXT)

So Mowgli went away and hunted with his four brother cubs, Bagheera, and Baloo in the jungle from that day on.

But he was not always alone, because years later, he became a man and married.

But that is a story for grown-ups.

THE END

[SPOT ILLO at end of Mowgli going off with Bagheera, Baloo, and four brother cubs]