s boat, balanced himself, and
cocked his gun.

Down there, on the left, a man was standing knee-deep in the water,
trying to free his boat from a fallen tree; a Siwash dog watched him
from the bank.

The Boy whistled. The dog threw up his nose, yapped and whined. The man
had turned sharply, saw his enemy and the levelled gun. He jumped into
the boat, but she was filling while he bailed; the dog ran along the
island, howling fit to raise the dead. When he was a little above the
Boy's boat he plunged into the river. Nig was a good swimmer, but the
current here would tax the best. The Boy found himself so occupied with
saving Nig from a watery grave, while he kept the canoe from capsizing,
that he forgot all about the thief till a turn in the river shut him
out of sight.

The canoe was moored, and while trying to restrain Nig's dripping
caresses, his master looked up, and saw something queer off there,
above the tops of the cottonwoods. As he looked he forgot the
dog--forgot everything in earth or heaven except that narrow cloud
wavering along the sky. He sat immovable in the round-shouldered
attitude learned in pulling a hand-sled against a gale from the Pole.
If you are moderately excited you may start, but there is an excitement
that "nails you."

Nig shook his wolf's coat and sprayed the water far and wide, made
little joyful noises, and licked the face that was so still. But his
master, like a man of stone, stared at that long gray pennon in the
sky. If it isn't a steamer, what is it? Like an echo out of some lesson
he had learned and long forgot, "Up-bound boats don't run the channel:
they have to hunt for easy water." Suddenly he leaped up. The canoe
tipped, and Nig went a second time into the water. Well for him that
they were near the shore; he could jump in without help this time. No
hand held out, no eye for him. His master had dragged the painter free,
seized the oars, and, saying harshly, "Lie down, you black devil!" he
pulled back against the current with every ounce he had in him. For the
gray pennon was going round the other side of the island, and the Boy
was losing the boat to Dawson.

Nig sat perkily in the bow, never budging till his master, running into
the head of the island, caught up a handful of tough root fringes, and,
holding fast by them, waved his cap, and shouted like one possessed,
let go the fringes, caught up his gun, and fired. Then Nig, realising
that for once in a way noise seemed