It was, as a matter of fact, halfway between breakfast and noon. In all
that time Neewa had scarcely moved, and Miki was finding himself bored
to death. The discomfort of last night's storm was only a memory, and
overhead there was a sun unshadowed by cloud. More than an hour before
Challoner's canoe had left the lake, and was now in the clear-running
water of a stream that was making its way down the southward slope of
the divide between Jackson's Knee and the Shamattawa. It was a new
stream to Challoner, fed by the large lake above, and guarding himself
against the treachery of waterfall and rapid he kept a keen lookout
ahead. For a matter of half an hour the water had been growing steadily
swifter, and Challoner was satisfied that before very long he would be
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-fo