Tiger! Tiger! (Campfire Story)

When Mowgli left the wolf pack after the fight at the Council Rock, he walked down out of the hills to a village of men. A woman named Messua took him in. She had lost a son to a tiger years before, and when she looked into Mowgli's face, she said, 'He has my boy's eyes.' She gave him milk and bread and a bed, and Mowgli stayed.

Living among men was strange. He had to wear clothes. He had to learn their language, and he learned it quickly. And he didn't understand why the villagers built walls, or why they argued about money. But he was given a job he liked: every day he took the village buffalo out to graze in the grassland, riding on the back of Rama, the great herd bull.

Every day, too, he went to a certain rock at the edge of the grassland, and there, waiting for him, was one of his wolf brothers. GRAY BROTHER! It was Gray Brother, the eldest of Mother Wolf's cubs, and he brought news from the jungle.

'Shere Khan has gone away to the far hills,' he said one day. 'But he means to come back and wait for you at the village gate, when you are not looking.' SHERE KHAN.

Mowgli thought about this. 'Then I will not wait for him,' he said.

A month later, Gray Brother came running with his tail down. GRAY BROTHER! 'He is back! He hunted last night, and he has eaten, and now he is lying asleep in the big dry ravine of the Waingunga river. He thinks you are still a helpless man's cub.'

Mowgli smiled. 'Has he eaten well? Then he will be slow and lazy. Gray Brother, can you split the herd for me?'

And then Mowgli made his plan. The buffalo were the one thing in the whole jungle that even Shere Khan would not face, when they were angry and running together. Gray Brother and Akela, the old Lone Wolf, came to help. AKELA! The two wolves ran in and out of the herd like shadows, splitting the bulls from the cows, and the herd snorted and stamped. BUFFALO!

Mowgli and Gray Brother took the bulls in a long circle, up around the top of the ravine. Akela took the cows and calves to the bottom end. Now the ravine was closed at both ends. And somewhere in the middle, Shere Khan lay sleeping in the heat.

Mowgli cupped his hands and shouted down into the ravine. 'Shere Khan! Wake up! It is I, Mowgli!'

From deep in the ravine came a sleepy snarl. SHERE KHAN?

'Now, Rama!' shouted Mowgli. 'Go!'

The bulls plunged down into the ravine. BUFFALO! The ground shook. Stones went flying. Dust rose like smoke. Shere Khan heard the thunder of hooves coming down the ravine, and he ran, but he was heavy with his dinner, and the other end of the ravine was blocked by the cows. BUFFALO! BUFFALO! The two halves of the herd came together like two walls closing in, and that was the end of Shere Khan the tiger.

When the dust settled, Mowgli stood looking at the great striped body. 'Mother Wolf said I would hunt you, Lungri,' he said quietly. 'And she was right.'

Mowgli took the tiger's skin to carry back to the Council Rock, just as he had promised the wolves he would. But the people of the village did not understand. A hunter in the village named Buldeo said that no boy could do such a thing without witchcraft, and the frightened villagers shut the gates against Mowgli and threw stones at him. Only Messua cried and called after him, 'Go away quickly, my son! Go! I know you avenged my boy.'

So Mowgli went back up into the hills with Gray Brother and old Akela, carrying the striped skin. And when the moon rose, he spread it out on the flat stone at the Council Rock, where the leader of the Pack used to lie. And Akela lay down on top of it, and called the old call. 'Look well, O Wolves! Look well!'

And this time, every wolf in the Pack came running, and looked, and was ashamed that they had ever turned against Mowgli or Akela. AKELA!

'Be our leader again, man's cub,' they begged. 'We are sick of having no law. We want to be the Free People again.'

'No,' said Mowgli. 'Man Pack and Wolf Pack have both cast me out. Now I will hunt alone in the jungle.'

'And we will hunt with you,' said his four brothers.

So Mowgli went away with the four wolf cubs who had grown up beside him, and he hunted with them in the jungle from that day on. GRAY BROTHER! But he was not alone, and he never would be. Because that is what a Pack is for.

AKELA!

Storyteller tips: build the stampede slowly, with feet stamping softly at first, then louder and louder until the whole campfire is thundering. Then stop, and let it be silent before Mowgli speaks.

For Cub Scouts, finish with your Pack's Grand Howl: "A-ke-la! We'll do our best!"