path, remembering the order that Tha had given, let down their
branches and marked him as he ran, drawing their fingers across
his back, his flank, his forehead, and his jowl. Wherever they
touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his yellow hide.
AND THOSE STRIPES DO THIS CHILDREN WEAR TO THIS DAY! When he
came to the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his hand and
called him 'The Striped One that comes by night,' and the First
of the Tigers was afraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to
the swamps howling."

Mowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water.

"So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, 'What is the
sorrow?' And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to
the new-made sky, which is now so old, said: 'Give me back my
power, O Tha. I am made ashamed before all the Jungle, and I
have run away from a Hairless One, and he has called me a
shameful name.' 'And why?' said Tha. 'Because I am smeared with
the mud of the marshes,' said the First of the Tigers. 'Swim,
then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it be mud it will wash
away,' said Tha; and the First of the Tigers swam, and rolled
and rolled upon the grass, till the Jungle ran round and round
before his eyes, but not one little bar upon all his hide was
changed, and Tha, watching him, laughed. Then the First of the
Tigers said: 'What have I done that this comes to me?'
Tha said, 'Thou hast killed the buck, and thou hast let Death
loose in the Jungle, and with Death has come Fear, so that the
people of the Jungle are afraid one of the other, as thou art
afraid of the Hairless One.' The First of the Tigers said,
'They will never fear me, for I knew them since the beginning.'