hen the miracle
happened. The man-beast's paw touched his head. It sent a strange and
terrible thrill through him. Yet it did not hurt. If he had not wedged
himself in so tightly he would have scratched and bitten. But he could
do neither.

Slowly Challoner worked his fingers to the loose hide at the back of
Neewa's neck. Miki, surmising that something momentous was about to
happen, watched the proceedings with popping eyes. Then Challoner's
fingers closed and the next instant he dragged Neewa forth and held him
at arm's length, kicking and squirming, and setting up such a bawling
that in sheer sympathy Miki raised his voice and joined in the agonized
orgy of sound. Half a minute later Challoner had Neewa once more in the
prison-sack, but this time he left the cub's head protruding, and drew
in the mouth of the sack closely about his neck, fastening it securely
with a piece of babiche string. Thus three quarters of Neewa was
imprisoned in the sack, with only his head sticking out. He was a cub
in a poke.

Leaving the cub to roll and squirm in protest Challoner went about the
business of getting breakfast. For once Miki found a proceeding more
interesting than that operation, and he hovered about Neewa as he
struggled and bawled, trying vainly to offer him some assistance in the
matter of sympathy. Finally Neewa lay still, and Miki sat down close
beside him and eyed his master with serious questioning if not actual
disapprobation.

The gray sky was breaking with the promise of the sun when Challoner
was ready to renew his long journey into the southland. He packed his
canoe, leaving Neewa and Miki until the last. In the bow of the canoe
he made a soft nest of the skin taken from the cub's mother. Then he
called Miki and tied the end of a worn rope around his neck, after
which he fastened the other end of this rope around the neck of Neewa.
Thus he had the cub and the pup on the same yard-long halter. Taking
each of the twain by the scruff of the neck he carried them to the
canoe and placed them in the nest he had made of Noozak's hide.

"Now you youngsters be good," he warned. "We're going to aim at forty
miles to-day to make up for the time we lost yesterday."

As the canoe shot out a shaft of sunlight broke through the sky low in
the east.

CHAPTER FIVE

During the first few moments in which the canoe moved swiftly over the
surface of the lake an amazing change had taken place in Neewa.
Challoner did