When he found a place where he could jump the Little Smoky he picked up his mares again and led them straight north, accepting their whinnies of congratulation with a careless toss of his head as though only women-folk would bother to think of such small matters.  He had a definite purpose, now.  He had had enough of the Valley of the Eagles with 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 yet reached that narrow throat where his lariat was of sufficient radius to cover the space between the wall of the canon and the stream.  However, he was in excellent position to maneuver for a throw in case Alcatraz tried to slip by.  Therefore he now brought his pony to a slow lope, and loosening his rope, he swung the noose in a wide circle; he was ready to plunge to either side and cast the lariat.