sprawled himself against it, and as he scrambled and scraped with
his four awkward legs to get 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 from its pier. Then the edge of the main current
caught at it, viciously--and so suddenly that Miki almost lost his
precarious footing, the log gave a twist, righted itself, and
began, to scud down stream at a speed that would have made
Challoner hug his breath had he been in their position with his
faithful canoe.

In fact, Challoner was at this very moment portaging the rapids
below the waterfall. To have set his canoe in them where Miki and
Neewa were gloriously sailing he would have considered an
inexcusable hazard, and as a matter of safety he was losing the
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 show which was destined to live in their memories
for as long as they were alive.

They were facing each other about amidships of the log, Neewa
flattened tight, 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 him from the log. But with Miki it was an open
question from the beginning whether he would weather the storm. He
had no claws that he could dig into the wood, and it was
impossible for him to use his clumsy legs as Neewa used his--like
two pairs of human arms. All he could do was to balance himself,
slipping this way or that as the log rolled or swerved in its
course, sometimes lying across it and sometimes lengthwise, and