butcher? The leadership of the Pack is with the Pack alone.
There were yells of Silence, thou man s cub! Let him speak. He has
kept our Law ; and at last the seniors of the Pack thundered: Let the
Dead Wolf speak. When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is
called the Dead Wolf as long as he lives, which is not long.
Akela raised his old head wearily:--
Free People, and ye too, jackals of Shere Khan, for twelve seasons I
have led ye to and from the kill, and in all that time not one has been
trapped or maimed. Now I have missed my kill. Ye know how that plot
was made. Ye know how ye brought me up to an untried buck to make my
weakness known. It was cleverly done. Your right is to kill me here on
the Council Rock, now. Therefore, I ask, who comes to make an end of the
Lone Wolf? For it is my right, by the Law of the Jungle, that ye come
one by one.
There was a long hush, for no single wolf cared to fight Akela to
the death. Then Shere Khan roared: Bah! What have we to do with this
toothless fool? He is doomed to die! It is the man-cub who has lived too
long. Free People, he was my meat from the first. Give him to me. I
am weary of this man-wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle for ten
seasons. 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!
Then more than half the Pack yelled: A man! A man! What has a man to do
with us? Let him go to his own place.
And turn all the people of the villages against us? clamored Shere
Khan. No, give him to me. He is a man, and none of us can look him
between the eyes.
Akela lifted his head again and said, He has eaten our food. He has
slept with us. He has driven game for us. He has broken no word of the
Law of the Jungle.
Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a
bull is little, but Bagheera s honor is something that he will perhaps
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