Leaving the cub to roll and squirm in protest Challoner went about
the business of getting breakfast. For once Miki found a
proceeding more interesting than that operation, and he hovered
about Neewa as he struggled and bawled, trying vainly to offer him
some assistance in the matter of sympathy. Finally Neewa lay
still, and Miki sat down close beside him and eyed his master with
serious questioning if not actual disapprobation.

The gray sky was breaking with the promise of the sun when
Challoner was ready to renew his long journey into the southland.
He packed his canoe, leaving Neewa and Miki until the last. In the
bow of the canoe he made a soft nest of the skin taken from the
cub's mother. Then he called Miki and tied the end of a worn rope
around his neck, after which he fastened the other end of this
rope around the neck of Neewa. Thus he had the cub and the pup on
the same yard-long halter. Taking each of the twain by the scruff
of the neck he carried them to the canoe and placed them in the
nest he had made of Noozak's hide.

"Now you youngsters be good," he warned. "We're going to aim at
forty miles to-day to make up for the time we lost yesterday."

As the canoe shot out a shaft of sunlight broke through the sky
low in the east.