its haunting lobos and its cunning human hunters. 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. Far above, the side of the mountain was still marked by a
raw wound where the landslide had swept, cutting deeper and deeper,
until it choked the narrow ravine with an incalculable mass of sand,
crushed trees, and a rubble of broken stone. It had dammed the Little
Smoky, but soon topping the obstruction, the river now poured over the
crest and filled the valley with a noise of rushing and shouting so
caught up by echoes that Alcatraz seemed to be standing inside a whole
circle of invisible waterfalls.

He wondered at that sight for only an instant; then, as the meaning
drove home to him, he wheeled and raced down the valley. This was the
explanation of the Enemy's move towards the throat of the canon!

He passed the mares like a red streak of light, his ears flagging back
and his tail swept out straight behind by the wind of his gallop. He
rushed about the next turn of the cliff and saw that the race had been
in vain--the Great Enemy was spurring his reeling cowpony into the
mouth of the Little Smoky gap!

The chestnut made his calculations without slackening his pace. The
man was in the valley, but he had not y