As a
matter of fact, there was small difference between Ahtik and Neewa
now, except that one lay still and the other moved. Both smelled
dead; both were decidedly "well hung." Even the crows circled over
Neewa, wondering why it was that he walked about like a living
thing.
That night Miki slept alone under a clump of bush in the creek
bottom. He was hungry and lonely, and for the first time in many
days he felt the bigness and emptiness of the world. He wanted
Neewa. He whined for him in the starry silence of the long hours
between sunset and dawn. The sun was well up before Neewa came
down the hill. He had finished his breakfast and his morning roll,
and he was worse than ever. Again Miki tried to coax him away but
Neewa was disgustingly fixed in his determination to remain in his
present glory. And this morning he was more than usually anxious
to return to the dip. All of yesterday he had found it necessary
to frighten the crows away from his meat, and to-day they were
doubly persistent in their efforts to rob him. With a grunt and a
squeal to Miki he hustled back up the hill after he had taken his
drink.
His trail entered the dip through the pile of rocks from which
Miki and he had watched the battle between Maheegun and the two
owls, and as a matter of caution he always paused for a few
moments among these rocks to make sure that all was well in the
open.
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