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.
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