His
rifle stood just out of reach on the other side of the rock.
At the other end of that eighty or ninety yards Neewa and Miki
stood blinking in the bright sunlight, with the mouth of the
cavern in which Neewa had slept so many months just behind them.
Miki was puzzled. Again it seemed to him that it was only
yesterday, and not months ago, that he had left Neewa in that den,
sleeping his lazy head off. And now that he had returned to him
after his own hard winter in the forests he was astonished to find
Neewa so big. For Neewa had grown steadily through his four
months' nap and he was half again as big as when he went to sleep.
Could Miki have spoken Cree, and had Meshaba given him the
opportunity, he might have explained the situation.
"You see, Mr. Indian"--he might have said--"this dub of a bear and
I have been pals from just about the time we were born. A man
named Challoner tied us together first when Neewa, there, was just
about as big as your head, and we did a lot of scrapping before we
got properly acquainted. Then we got lost, and after that we
hitched up like brothers; and we had a lot of fun and excitement
all through last summer, until at last, when the cold weather
came, Neewa hunted up this hole in the ground and the lazy cuss
went to sleep for all winter.
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