Then he said, softly, "So at Washington they
wish to know what the Great Eyrie hides within its circuit?"
"Yes, Mr. Smith."
"And you, also?"
"I do."
"So do I, Mr. Strock."
He and I were as one in our curiosity.
"You will understand," added he, knocking the cinders from his pipe,
"that as a land-owner, I am much interested in these stories of the
Great Eyrie, and as mayor, I wish to protect my constituents."
"A double reason," I commented, "to stimulate you to discover the
cause of these extraordinary occurrences! Without doubt, my dear Mr.
Smith, they have appeared to you as inexplicable and as threatening
as to your people."
"Inexplicable, certainly, Mr. Strock. For on my part, I do not
believe it possible that the Great Eyrie can be a volcano; the
Alleghanies are nowhere of volcanic origins. I, myself, in our
immediate district, have never found any geological traces of scoria,
or lava, or any eruptive rock whatever. I do not think, therefore,
that Morganton can possibly be threatened from such a source."
"You really think not, Mr. Smith?"
"Certainly."
"But these tremblings of the earth that have been felt in the
neighborhood!"
"Yes these tremblings! These tremblings!" repeated Mr. Smith, shaking
his head;" but in the first place, is it certain that there have been
tremblings? At the moment when the flames showed most sharply, I was
on my farm of Wildon, less than a mile from the Great Eyrie.
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