64 FRO^f DLOMTDON TO SMOKY. 



holding a squirrel in its clutch, flow into a neigh- 

 boring tree, one of the goshawks hurled itself 

 upon the intruder and drove it from view. They 

 would liave liked to expel me in the same way, 

 and their startling cries and resentment made me 

 feel as though I had no place or part in their 

 great solitude. Nevertheless I pushed on, feel- 

 ing somewhat as one does who invades a cathedral 

 by night, and hears his clumsy footsteps protested 

 by the echoes in the vaulted roof. 



An hour and a half, or more, after leaving 

 Angus McDonald's, I heard the booming sound 

 of the Indian Brook Falls. Pushing through the 

 last screen of fallen timber and underbrush, I 

 gained the crumbling edge of cliff overhanging 

 the river. Far beneath, the foam-flecked water 

 crept along the bottom of a dark, narrow canon. 

 It passed away southward between lofty walls of 

 rock, above which stood the forest and the higher 

 slopes of the mountains. The space into which I 

 was looking was a vast, circular pit, a pothole of 

 enormous size worn in the rock by whirling water 

 during unnumbered ages. Its height seemed 

 to be as great as its diameter, and either would 

 be measured by hundreds of feet. Although at 

 high water Indian Brook doubtless covers the 

 whole bottom of this punch bowl, at this time 

 a long, slender sand spit projected from the west- 

 ern wall to the middle of the dark brown pool. 



