"It has not lost fat in the telling," Bagheera whispered, and
Mowgli laughed behind his hand.

"In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or
sugar-cane, nor were there any little huts such as ye have
all seen; and the Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived
in the Jungle together, making one people. But presently they
began to dispute over their food, though there was grazing
enough for all. They were lazy. Each wished to eat where he
lay, as sometimes we can do now when the spring rains are good.
Tha, the First of the Elephants, was busy making new jungles
and leading the rivers in their beds. He could not walk in all
places; therefore he made the First of the Tigers the master
and the judge of the Jungle, to whom the Jungle People should
bring their disputes. In those days the First of the Tigers
ate fruit and grass with the others. He was as large as I am,
and he was very beautiful, in colour all over like the blossom
of the yellow creeper. There was never stripe nor bar upon
his hide in those good days when this the Jungle was new.
All the Jungle People came before him without fear, and his
word was the Law of all the Jungle. We were then, remember ye,
one people.

"Yet upon a night there was a dispute between two bucks--a
grazing-quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and the
fore-feet--and it is said that as the two spoke together before
the First of the First of the Tigers lying among the flowers,
a buck pushed him with his horns, and the First of the Tigers
forgot that he was the master and judge of the Jungle, and,
leaping upon that buck, broke his neck.