The Lone Wolf had led them for a year now. He had fallen into a wolf trap when he was young, and once he had been caught beaten so badly that he almost died; so he knew exactly what men were like. At the meeting, there was not very much talking. The cubs played with each other while their mothers and fathers sat around them in a circle. Now and again an older wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at him carefully, and return to his place without making a sound. Sometimes a mother would push her cub far out into the moonlight, because she wanted to make sure that everyone had seen it.

From his rock, Akela cried: "You know the Law - you know the Law. Look carefully, you Wolves!" And the anxious mothers would repeat what he had said: "Look - look well, you Wolves!" Then - and the short hairs on Mother Wolf's neck lifted up by themselves when this happened - Father Wolf pushed Mowgli the Frog into the moonlight in the center of the circle.. Mowgli sat laughing and playing with some pebbles that were bright in the light of the moon. Akela did not lift his head from his paws. There was no change in his voice as he said "Look well!" Then there was a roar from behind the rocks - it was the voice of Shere Khan crying: "The cub is mine. Give him to me. Why do the Free People want a man's cub?"

Akela did not move. Instead he said again: "Look well, you Wolves! The Free People do not take orders from anyone but the Free People. Look well!"