him for the reward. Mowgli refuses, and summons Akela to restrain him. When Mowgli and Akela let him go, the frightened hunter returns to the village and tells the villagers Mowgli is a shapeshifting sorcerer. By the time the unsuspecting Mowgli returns with the buffalo, the entire village except Messua has turned against him and they drive him away. Confused and disgusted by their behaviour, Mowgli fulfils his promise to lay out Shere Khan's hide on Council Rock and dances upon it, singing of his emotional confusion. The pack offers to take Mowgli back, but he refuses to forgive them for casting him out earlier. Instead he decides that from now on he will hunt alone, except for his four wolf-brothers who refuse to be parted from him. The story ends with the statement that Mowgli will eventually grow up and get married, "but that is a story for grown-ups". This is clearly a reference to Kipling's earlier story "In the Rukh" (collected in Many Inventions), which was indeed aimed at adults, in which the adult Mowgli does marry. The Jungle Book stories 1894 short stories Works originally published in St. Nicholas Magazine