‘Something is coming up hill,’ said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear.  ‘Get ready.’

The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his leap.  Then, if you had been watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world—­the wolf checked in mid spring.  He made his bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself.  The result was that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing almost where he left ground.

‘Man!’ he snapped.  ‘A man’s cub.  Look!’

Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked brown baby who could just walk—­as soft and as dimpled a little atom as ever came to a wolf’s cave at night.  He looked up into Father Wolf’s face, and laughed.

‘Is that a man’s cub?’ said Mother Wolf.  ’I have never seen one.  Bring it here.’

A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an egg without breaking it, and though Father Wolf’s jaws closed right on the child’s back not a tooth even scratched the skin, as he laid it down among the cubs.

‘How little!  How naked, and—­how bold!’ said Mother Wolf, softly.  The baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm hide.  ’Ahai!  He is taking his meal with the others.  And so this is a man’s cub.  Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man’s cub among her children?’

’I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our Pack or in my time,’ said Father Wolf.  ’He is altogether without hair, and I could kill him with a touch of my foot.  But see, he looks up and is not afraid.’

The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Shere Khan’s great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance.  Tabaqui, behind him, was squeaking:  ’My lord, my lord, it went in here!’

‘Shere Khan does us great honour,’ said Father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry.  ‘What does Shere Khan need?’

‘My quarry.  A man’s cub went this way,’ said Shere Khan.  ’Its parents have run off.  Give it to me.’

Shere Khan had jumped at a woodcutters’ camp-fire, as Father Wolf had said, and was furious from the pain of his burned feet.  But Father Wolf knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in by.  Even where he was, Shere Khan’s shoulders and fore paws were cramped for want of room, as a man’s would be if he tried to fight in a barrel.

‘The Wolves are a free people,’ said Father Wolf.  ’They take orders from the Head of the Pack, and not from any striped cattle-dealer.  The man’s cub is ours—­to kill if we choose.’

’Ye choose and ye do not choose!  What talk is this of choosing?  By the bull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dog’s den for my fair dues?  It is I, Shere Khan, who speak!’

The tiger’s roar filled the cave with thunder.  Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.