compelled to make a portage. A little later he heard ahead of him
the low and steady murmur which told him he was approaching a
danger zone. As he shot around the next bend, hugging fairly close
to shore, he saw, four or five hundred yards below him, a rock-
frothed and boiling maelstrom of water.

Swiftly his eyes measured the situation. The rapids ran between an
almost precipitous shore on one side and a deep forest on the
other. He saw at a glance that it was the forest side over which
he must make the portage, and this was the shore opposite him and
farthest away. Swinging his canoe at a 45-degree angle he put all
the strength of body and arms into the sweep of his paddle. There
would be just time to reach the other shore before the current
became dangerous. Above the sweep of the rapids he could now hear
the growling roar of a waterfall below.

It was at this unfortunate moment that Miki decided to venture one
more experiment with Neewa. With a friendly yip he swung out one
of his paws. Now Miki's paw, for a pup, was monstrously big, and
his foreleg was long and lanky, so that when the paw landed
squarely on the end of Neewa's nose it was like the swing of a
prize-fighter's glove. The unexpectedness of it was a further
decisive feature in the situation; and, on top of this, Miki swung
his other paw around like a club and caught Neewa a jolt in the
eye. This was too much, even from a friend, and with a sudden
snarl Neewa bounced out of his nest and clinched with the pup.

Now the fact was that Miki, who had so ingloriously begged for
mercy in their first scrimmage, came of fighting stock himself.
Mix the blood of a Mackenzie hound--which is the biggest-footed,