But Neewa always rose
again, his four fat legs working for dear life.
Then came the waterfall. By this time Miki had become accustomed
to travelling under water, and the full horror of the new
cataclysm into which they were plunged was mercifully lost to him.
His paws had almost ceased their motion. He was still conscious of
the roar in his ears, but the affair was less unpleasant than it
was at the beginning. In fact, he was drowning. To Neewa the
pleasant sensations of a painless death were denied. No cub in the
world was wider awake than he when the final catastrophe came. His
head was well above water and he was clearly possessed of all his
senses. Then the river itself dropped out from under him and he
shot down in an avalanche of water, feeling no longer the drag of
Miki's weight at his neck.
How deep the pool was at the bottom of the waterfall Challoner
might have guessed quite accurately. Could Neewa have expressed an
opinion of his own, he would have sworn that it was a mile. Miki
was past the stage of making estimates, or of caring whether it
was two feet or two leagues. His paws had ceased to operate and he
had given himself up entirely to his fate. But Neewa came up
again, and Miki followed, like a bobber.
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