ernoon. The
chattering of the nearby stream grew quickly to a roar.

By evening, Alaskon's fever seemed to have dropped almost to normal, and
his strength nearly returned as well. The wound, thanks more to the
encrusted matte of mold than to any complications within the flesh
itself, was still ugly-looking, but it was now painful only when the
navigator moved carelessly, and Mathild was convinced that it was
mending. Alaskon himself, having been deprived of activity all day, was
unusually talkative.

"Has it occurred to either of you," he said in the gathering gloom,
"that since that stream is water, it can't possibly be coming from the
Great Range? All the peaks over there are just cones of ashes and lava.
We've seen young volcanoes in the process of building themselves, so
we're sure of that. What's more, they're usually hot. I don't see how
there could possibly be any source of water in the Range--not even
run-off from the rains."

"It can't just come up out of the ground," Honath said. "It must be fed
by rain. By the way it sounds now, it could even be the first part of a
flood."

"As you say, it's probably rain-water," Alaskon said cheerfully. "But
not off the Great Range, that's out of the question. Most likely it
collects on the cliffs."

"I hope you're wrong," Honath said. "The cliffs may be a little easier
to climb from this side, but there's still the cliff tribe to think
about."

"Maybe, maybe. But the cliffs are big. The tribes on this side may never
have heard of the war with our tree-top folk. No, Honath, I think that's
our only course."

"If it is," Honath said grimly, "we're going to wish more than ever that
we had some stout, sharp needles among us."

* * * * *

Alaskon's judgment was quickly borne out. The three left the cave at
dawn the next morning, Alaskon moving somewhat stiffly but not otherwise
noticeably incommoded, and resumed following the stream bed upwards--a
stream now swollen by the rains to a roaring rapids. After winding its
way upwards for about a mile in the general direction of the Great
Range, the stream turned on itself and climbed rapidly back toward the
basalt cliffs, falling toward the three over successively steeper
shelves of jutting rock.

Then it turned again, at right angles, and the three found themselves at
the exit of a dark gorge, little more than thirty feet high, but both
narrow and long. Here the stream was almost perfectly