No cub in the world was wider awake than he when the final catastrophe came.

His head was well above water and he was clearly possessed of all his senses.

Then the river itself dropped out from under him and he shot down in an avalanche of water, feeling no longer the drag of Miki's weight at his neck.
How deep the pool was at the bottom of the waterfall Challoner might have guessed quite accurately.

Could Neewa have expressed an opinion of his own, he would have sworn that it was a mile.

Miki was past the stage of making estimates, or of caring whether it was two feet or two leagues.