Part 3 (1/2)

Vainly Challoner yelled at theer of the rapids Neewa and Miki were too absorbed to hear hiain, but this time his sharp teeth were firmly fixed in the loose hide under Neewa's neck, and with his paws he continued to kick and bat in a way that promised effectively to pu happened which Challoner feared Still in a clinch they rolled off the prow of the canoe into the swirling current of the stream

For ten seconds or so they utterly disappeared Then they bobbed up, a good fifty feet below hiether as they sped swiftly toward the doo cry broke from Challoner's lips He was powerless to save therief For many weeks Miki had been his only chu rope to which they were fastened, Miki and Neeept into the frothing turmoil of the rapids For Miki it was the kindness of fate that had inspired his master to fasten hie--weight, fourteen pounds--was about 80 per cent bone and only a half of 1 per cent fat; while Neeeight thirteen pounds, was about 90 per cent

fat Therefore Miki had the floating capacity of a small anchor, while Neeas a first-class life-preserver, and alsters was there a yellow streak Both were of fighting stock, and, though Miki was under water h the rapids, never for an instant did he give up the struggle to keep his nose in the air

Sometimes he was on his back and sometimes on his belly; but no oing like paddles

To an extent this helped Neewa in the heroic fight he wastoo much water himself Had he been alone his ten or eleven pounds of fat would have carried him down-stream like a toy balloon covered with fur, but, with the fourteen-pound drag around his neck, the proble under completely was a serious one Half a dozen tiht Miki and dragged hiain, his four fat legs working for dear life

Then came the waterfall By this ti under water, and the full horror of the new cataclysed was mercifully lost to him His paws had almost ceased their motion He was still conscious of the roar in his ears, but the affair was less unpleasant than it was at the beginning In fact, he was drowning To Neewa the pleasant sensations of a painless death were denied No cub in the world ider awake than he when the final catastrophe came His head ell above water and he was clearly possessed of all his senses Then the river itself dropped out fro no longer the drag of Miki's weight at his neck

How deep the pool was at the bottouessed quite accurately Could Neewa have expressed an opinion of his own, he would have sworn that it was aestiues His paws had ceased to operate and he had given hiain, and Miki followed, like a bobber He was about to gasp his last gasp when the force of the current, as it swung out of the whirlpool, flung Neewa upon a bit of partly sube, and in a wild and strenuous effort to ed Miki's head out of water so that the pup hung at the edge of the driftage like a hangman's victim at the end of his rope

CHAPTER SIX

It is doubtful whether in the few uh Neewa's head It is toothe half-dead and almost unconscious Miki froet himself where it was safe and dry, and to do this he of necessity had to drag the pup with hi his sharp little claws into the driftwood, and as he advanced Miki was dragged up head foremost out of the cold and friendless strea around which the water was eddying, and there he flattened hi else in his life The log was entirely hidden frorowth of brushwood Otherwise, ten minutes later Challoner would have seen them

As it was, Miki had not sufficiently recovered either to smell or hear his master when Challoner came to see if there was a possibility of his s h of the man-beast to last him for the rean to gasp, and cough, and gulp up water, and for the first tian to take a live interest in him In another ten minutes Miki raised his head and looked about hi on the rope, as if to advise hiet busy if they were expected to reach shore And Miki, drenched and forlorn, rese of skin and flesh, actuallyhis tail when he saa

He was still in a couple of inches of water, and with a hopeful eye on the log upon which Neeas squatted he began to work his wobbly legs toward it It was a high log, and a dry log, and when Miki reached it his unlucky star ith hiainst it, and as he scraet up alongside Neewa he gave to the log the slight push which it needed to set it free of the sunken driftage Slowly at first the eddying current carried one end of the log away froht at it, viciously--and so suddenly that Miki alhted itself, and began, to scud down strea his breath had he been in their position with his faithful canoe

In fact, Challoner was at this verythe rapids below the waterfall To have set his canoe in the he would have considered an inexcusable hazard, and as athe better part of a couple of hours by packing his outfit through the forest to a point half a mile below That half mile was to the cub and the pup a shohich was destined to live in theiras they were alive

They were facing each other about aht, his sharp claws dug in like hooks, and his little brown eyes half starting from his head It would have taken a crowbar to wrench hi But with Miki it was an open question fro whether he would weather the stor into the wood, and it was is as Neewa used his--like two pairs of hu this way or that as the log rolled or swerved in its course, sothwise, and every moment with the jaws of uncertainty open wide for hiimlets they would have bored holes Froiven Neewa credit for understanding that his own personal safety depended not soas upon Miki's seamanshi+p If Miki went overboard there would be left but one thing for hi larger and heavier at one end than at the other, swept on without turning broadside, and with the swiftness and appearance of a huge torpedo While Neewa's back was turned toward the horror of frothing water and roaring rock behind hi it, lost none of its spectacular beauty Now and then the log shot into one of the white masses of foam and for an instant or tould utterly disappear; and at these intervals Miki would hold his breath and close his eyes while Neewa dug his toes in still deeper Once the log grazed a rock Six inches more and they would have been without a shi+p Their trip was not half over before both cub and pup looked like two round balls of lather out of which their eyes peered wildly

Swiftly the roar of the cataract was left behind; the huge rocks around which the current boiled and twisted with a ferocious snarling beca floated smoothly and without convulsions, and then, at last, the quiet and placid flow of calm water Not until then did the two balls of suds make athey had passed through, and Miki, looking down streaain, the deep forest, and the strealoith the warm sun He drew in a breath that filled his whole body and let it out again with a sigh of relief so deep and sincere that it blew out a scatter of foam from the ends of his nose and whiskers For the first time he becas isted under hi was under his chest The save hihten himself Unlike Neewa he was an experienced VOYAGEUR For more than a month he had travelled steadily with Challoner in his canoe, and of ordinarily decent water he was unafraid So he perked up a little, and offered Neewa a congratulatory yip that was half a whine

But Neewa's education had travelled along another line, and while his experience in a canoe had been confined to that day he did knohat a log was He knew fro in the water is the next thing to a live thing, and that its capacity for playing evil jokes was beyond any computation that he had ever been able to e was fatally defective Inash the worst stretch of water he had ever seen he regarded it in the light of a first-class canoe--with the exception that it was unpleasantly rounded on top But this little defect did not worry him To Neewa's horror he sat up boldly, and looked about hi still closer, while Miki was seized with an overwhel desire to shake from himself the mass of suds in which, with the exception of the end of his tail and his eyes, he was completely swathed He had often shaken hi or answering the question he did it

Like the trap of a gibbet suddenly sprung by the hang half over Without so much as a wail Miki was off like a shot, hit the water with a deep and solemn CHUG, and once more disappeared as co hiloriously, and when the log righted itself again he was tenaciously hugging his old place, all the froth washed froone And then he felt onceon his neck! Of necessity, because his head was pulled in the direction of the rope, he sahere the rope disappeared in the water But there was no Miki The pup was down too far for Neewa to see With the drag growing heavier and heavier--for here there was not rio, and had joined Miki in the water, the good fortune which was turning their ould have beenboth as an anchor and a rudder; slowly the log shi+fted its course, was caught in a beach-eddy, and drifted in close to a muddy bank

With one wild leap Neeas ashore Feeling the earth under his feet he started to run, and the result was that Miki cah the rown crustacean while he got the wind back into his lungs Neewa, sensing the fact that for a few moments his comrade was physically unfit for travel, shook himself, and waited Miki picked up quickly Within fivehimself so furiously that Neewa became the centre of a shower of mud and water

Had they remained where they were, Challoner would have found them an hour or so later, for he paddled that way, close inshore, looking for their bodies It enerations of instinct back of Neearned him of that possibility, for within a quarter of an hour after they had landed he was leading the way into the forest, and Miki was following It was a new adventure for the pup