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But he did not eat. To Miki's consternation he rolled himself round and round in his nest of sand and went to sleep again. The next day, at about the same time, Neewa roused himself once more. This time he went as far as the mouth of the den, and lapped up a few mouthfuls of snow. But he still refused to eat the rabbit.
For a space during which Durant's heart beat like a hammer Taao turned, as if on a pivot, following Miki's movement, and the crest on his spine stood up like bristles. Then Miki stopped, and in that moment Durant saw the end of all his hopes. Without a sound the wolf-dog was at his opponent. A bellow rose from Grouse Piet's lips.
Miki's four paws were paddling the air again, but this time his sharp teeth were firmly fixed in the loose hide under Neewa's neck, and with his paws he continued to kick and bat in a way that promised effectively to pummel the wind out of Neewa had not the thing happened which Challoner feared. Still in a clinch they rolled off the prow of the canoe into the swirling current of the stream.
Neither of them was afraid, yet in that cavernous silence their comradeship was born anew, and in it there was something now that crept down into their wild little souls and filled the emptiness that was left by the death of Neewa's mother and the loss of Miki's master.
With the day he went to the slit in the face of the rock, and in his astonishment he made no sound, but stared forth upon a world that was no longer the world he had left last night. Everywhere it was white a dazzling, eye-blinding white. The sun had risen. It shot a thousand flashing shafts of radiant light into Miki's eyes.
The sixth time the club missed, and Miki's jaws closed against The Brute's chest, ripping away the thick coat and shirt as if they had been of paper, and leaving on Le Beau's skin a bleeding gash. Ten inches more a little better vision in his blood-dimmed eyes and he would have reached the man's throat. A great cry rose out of Le Beau. For an instant he felt the appalling nearness of death.
Miki thumped his tail harder than before. "Fine," he seemed to say. "Just think of it," said Challoner, looking over Miki's head a thousand miles away, "Fourteen months and at last we're going home. I'm going to train you and the cub for that sister of mine. Eh, won't you like that?
And then, to the amazement of all who beheld, Challoner was down upon his knees beside him, and his arms were about him, and Miki's lacerated tongue was reaching for his hands, his face, his clothes. "Miki Miki Miki!" Durant's hand fell heavily upon Challoner's shoulder. It was like the touch of a red-hot iron to Challoner. In a flash he was on his feet, facing him.
"And it is YOU YOU you she-devil! who shall eat his heart alive! I will force it down your throat: I will " He was dragging Miki forth by the chain. The club rose as Miki's head came through. In another instant it would have beaten his head to a pulp but Nanette was between it and the dog like a flash, and the blow went wild.
He had lost his fearless and blatant contempt for winged creatures; he had learned that the earth was not made for him alone, and that to hold his small place on it he must fight as Maheegun and the owls had fought. This was because in Miki's veins was the red fighting blood of a long line of ancestors that reached back to the wolves. In Neewa the process of deduction was vastly different.
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