It was the fit that saved them. In his maniacal contortions he
swung around to Neewa's side of the sapling, when, with their
halter once more free from impediment, Neewa bolted for safety.
Miki followed, yelping at every jump. No longer did Neewa feel a
horror of the river. The instinct of his kind told him that he
wanted water, and wanted it badly. As straight as Challoner might
have set his course by a compass he headed for the stream, but he
had proceeded only a few hundred feet when they came upon a tiny
creek across which either of them could have jumped. Neewa jumped
into the water, which was four or five inches deep, and for the
first time in his life Miki voluntarily took a plunge. For a long
time they lay in the cooling rill.
The light of day was dim and hazy before Miki's eyes, and he was
beginning to swell from the tip of his nose to the end of his bony
tail. Neewa, being so much fat, suffered less. He could still see,
and, as the painful hours passed, a number of things were
adjusting themselves in his brain. All this had begun with the
man-beast. It was the man-beast who had taken his mother from him.
It was the man-beast who had chucked him into the dark sack, and
it was the man-beast who had FASTENED THE ROPE AROUND HIS NECK.
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