CONTENTS
How Fear Came
The Law of the Jungle
The Miracle of Purun Bhagat
A Song of Kabir
Letting in the Jungle
Mowgli's Song against People
The Undertakers
A Ripple Song
The King's Ankus
The Song of the Little Hunter
Quiquern
'Angutivaun Taina'
Red Dog
Chil's Song
The Spring Running
The Outsong
HOW FEAR CAME
The stream is shrunk--the pool is dry,
And we be comrades, thou and I;
With fevered jowl and dusty flank
Each jostling each along the bank;
And by one drouthy fear made still,
Forgoing thought of quest or kill.
Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see,
The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,
And the tall buck, unflinching, note
The fangs that tore his father's throat.
The pools are shrunk--the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud--Good Hunting!--loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce.
The Law of the Jungle--which is by far the oldest law in the world--has
arranged for almost every kind of accident that may befall the Jungle
People, till now its code is as perfect as time and custom can make
it. You will remember that Mowgli spent a great part of his life in the
Seeonee Wolf-Pack, learning the Law from Baloo, the Brown Bear; and
it was Baloo who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant
orders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it dropped
across every one's back and no one could escape. "When thou hast lived
as long as I have, Little Brother, thou wilt see how all the Jungle
obeys at least one Law. And that will be no pleasant sight," said Baloo.
This talk went in at one ear and out at the other, for a boy who spends
his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till it
actually stares him in the face. But, one year, Baloo's words came true,
and Mowgli saw all the Jungle working under the Law.
It began when the winter Rains failed almost entirely, and Ikki, the
Porcupine, meeting Mowgli in a bamboo-thicket, told him that the wild
yams were drying up. Now everybody knows that Ikki is ridiculously
fastidious in his choice of food, and will eat nothing but the very best
and ripest. So Mowgli laughed and said, "What is that to me?"
"Not much NOW," said Ikki, rattling his quills in a stiff, uncomfortable
way, "but later we shall see. Is there any more diving into the deep
rock-pool below the Bee-Rocks, Little Brother?"
"No. The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish to break my
head," said Mowgli, who, in those days, was quite sure that he knew as
much as any five of the Jungle People put together.
