And he chose
for exit the canon of the Little Smoky itself. For there were many
blind ravines pocketing the sides of the Valley of the Eagles, but the
little Smoky would lead him straight to the summits. He looked back
as he reached the mouth of the gorge, filled with the murmur of the
rain-swollen waters. Perris was drifting towards them. And Alcatraz
tossed his head and struck into a canter.
It was a precaution which he never abandoned, for while the Great
Enemy was most to be feared, there were other human foes and such a
narrow-throated gorge as this would ideally serve them as a trap. He
shortened his lope so as to be ready to whirl away as he came to the
first winding between the rugged walls of the valley--but the ground
was clear before him and calling up his lagging herd, he made on
towards a sound of falling water ahead. It was a new sound to Alcatraz
in that place, for he remembered no cataract in this gorge. But every
water-course had been greatly changed since the rains began, and who
could tell what alterations had occurred here?
Who, indeed, could have guessed it? For as he swung about the next
bend he was confronted by a sheer wall of rock over which the falling
torrent of the Little Smoky was churned to white spray by projecting
fragments.
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