All 7 stories — from Mowgli's first night in the wolf den to the final parade of Her Majesty's animals.
The Jungle Book has two structures working at once. The first is Mowgli's arc across stories one, two, and three: infancy in the wolf pack, capture by the Bandar-log, and the killing of Shere Khan. The second is a set of four independent fables, each complete in one sitting, each a version of the book's deepest question — what does it mean to know your nature fully and act from it? Seven stories total, and the best approach is to read them in order: the Mowgli cycle first, then the four that follow.
Infancy, captivity, and the killing of Shere Khan.
A human infant crawls into a wolf den on a night Shere Khan is hunting. The wolves keep him, Bagheera pays for him, Baloo teaches him the Law. Fifteen years later the young wolves turn against him and he drives them back with fire — then leaves for the human village, belonging to neither world.
Mowgli makes friends with the Bandar-log — the monkey people who have no Law and no memory — and is carried to the Cold Lairs, a ruined city. Baloo and Bagheera summon Kaa the python to rescue him. Kaa's dance hypnotizes every monkey in sight; Mowgli, human, is immune.
Mowgli enters the human village, learns to herd cattle, and drives Shere Khan into a ravine trap with the buffalo herd. He skins the tiger. The village, frightened of what he can do, drives him out. He returns to the jungle with the skin.
The mongoose, the seal, the elephant-boy, and the animals of the army.
Kotick the white seal watches his people driven to the slaughter pits every year and refuses to accept it as normal. He spends years searching the Pacific for a safe beach, is mocked for it, and eventually finds one — then fights every bull on the breeding beach to make them follow him there.
A mongoose adopted by a British family discovers the garden has two king cobras who plan to kill the family. He kills Nag in the bathroom at night and pursues Nagaina into her burrow after destroying her eggs. He comes out. She does not.
Little Toomai, son of an elephant handler, rides Kala Nag into the jungle at night and witnesses the elephants' secret dance — a gathering of every elephant in the region in a forest clearing. No human has seen this before. When he comes back, Petersen Sahib calls him a mahout.
The night before a great review, the mules, horses, camels, bullocks, and elephants of Her Majesty's service compare their duties and their fears. A young prince overhears and asks how the English manage so many different creatures. The answer is a single word: obedience, up a clear chain.