and to this bass Miki's soprano wailing added the touch which
would have convinced any passing Indian that the loup-garou devils
were having a dance.

Now that their foes were in disorderly flight the wasps, who are
rather a chivalrous enemy, would have returned to their upset
fortress had not Miki, in his mad flight, chosen one side of a
small sapling and Neewa the other--a misadventure that stopped
them with a force almost sufficient to break their necks.
Thereupon a few dozen of Ahmoo's rear guard started in afresh.
With his fighting blood at last aroused, Neewa swung out and
caught Miki where there was almost no hair on his rump. Already
half blinded, and so wrought up with pain and terror that he had
lost all sense of judgment or understanding, Miki believed that
the sharp dig of Neewa's razor-like claws was a deeper thrust than
usual of the buzzing horrors that overwhelmed him, and with a
final shriek he proceeded to throw a fit.

It was the fit that saved them. In his maniacal contortions he
swung around to Neewa's side of the sapling, when, with their
halter once more free from impediment, Neewa bolted for safety.
Miki followed, yelping at every jump. No longer did Neewa feel a
horror of the river. The instinct of his kind told him that he
wanted water, and wanted it badly. As straight as Challoner might
have set his course by a compass he headed for the stream, but he
had proceeded only a few hundred feet when they came upon a tiny
creek across which either of them could have jumped. Neewa jumped
into the water, which was four or five inches deep, and for the
first time in his life Miki voluntarily took a plunge. For a long
time they lay in the cooling rill.