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 every moment with the jaws of uncertainty open wide for him.  Neewa’s eyes never left him for an instant.  Had they been gimlets they would have bored holes.  From the acuteness of this life-and-death stare one would have given Neewa credit for understanding that his own personal safety depended not so much upon his claws and his hug as upon Miki’s seamanship.  If Miki went overboard there would be left but one thing for him to do—­and that would be to follow.

The log, being larger and heavier at one end than at the other, swept on without turning broadside, and with the swiftness and appearance of a huge torpedo.  While Neewa’s back was turned toward the horror of frothing water and roaring rock behind him, Miki, who was facing it, lost none of its spectacular beauty.  Now and then the log shot into one of the white masses of foam and for an instant or two would utterly disappear; and at these intervals Miki would hold his breath and close his eyes while Neewa dug his toes in still deeper.  Once the log grazed a rock.  Six inches more and they would have been without a ship.  Their trip was not half over before both cub and pup looked like two round balls of lather out of which their eyes peered wildly.

Swiftly the roar of the cataract was left behind; the huge rocks around which the current boiled and twisted with a ferocious snarling became fewer; there came open spaces in which the log floated smoothly and without convulsions, and then, at last, the quiet and placid flow of calm water.  Not until then did the two balls of suds make a move.  For the first time Neewa saw the whole of the thing they had passed through, and Miki, looking down stream, saw the quiet shores again, the deep forest, and the stream aglow with the warm sun.  He drew in a breath that filled his whole body and let it out again with a sigh of relief so deep and sincere that it blew out a scatter of foam from the ends of his nose and whiskers.  For the first time he became conscious of his own discomfort.  One of his hind legs was twisted under him, and a foreleg was under his chest.  The smoothness of the water and the nearness of the shores gave him confidence, and he proceeded to straighten himself.  Unlike Neewa he was an experienced voyageur.  For more than a month he had travelled steadily with Challoner in his canoe, and of ordinarily decent water he was unafraid.  So he perked up a little, and offered Neewa a congratulatory yip that was half a whine.