The Lone Wolf had led them for a year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf trap in his youth, and once he had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew the manners and customs of men. There was very little talking at the Rock. The cubs tumbled over each other in the center of the circle where their mothers and fathers sat, and now and again a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet. Sometimes a mother would push her cub far out into the moonlight to be sure that he had not been overlooked.

Akela from his rock would cry: "Ye know the Law - ye know the Law. Look well, O Wolves!" And the anxious mothers would take up the call: "Look - look well, O Wolves!" At last - and Mother Wolf's neck bristles lifted as the time came - Father Wolf pushed "Mowgli the Frog," as they called him, into the center, where he sat laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened in the moonlight. Akela never raised his head from his paws, but went on with the monotonous cry: "Look well!" A roar came up from behind the rocks - the voice of Shere Khan crying: "The cub is mine. Give him to me. What have the Free People to do with a man's cub?"

Akela never even twitched his ears. All he said was: "Look well, O Wolves! What have the Free People to do with the orders of any save the Free People? Look well!"