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The water at the middle of the river flowed much faster than the water along the banks, and Mouchard proceeded to paddle the raft with all of his might as he made his way across the wide river. He fought the current as he went along, and he found that he was going much further downstream than he had originally planned or expected. There was a certain rock formation on the far side of the river that he had kept his eyes on as a target while he drifted across, and he suddenly realized that he was going to miss the target and land much further downstream than he would like. As he came to shore on the far side, he found that he was at least a mile away from where he wanted to be.
“No matter,” he thought. “I do not know where the prisoners may have landed, and this will allow me to cover more ground and search for their footprints over a larger area,” he reasoned, though he realized that finding the prisoners now would be a monumental undertaking. He dragged the makeshift raft onto the shore and tied it securely to a tree, and then listening carefully to the world around him, he heard the sound of birds stirring in the forest. He climbed the lower limbs of a nearby tree, and when he reached the top, he looked out over the forest where Scalus Mountain rose high into the sky in the distance. He waited patiently in the treetop and watched cautiously for signs of his quarry. Several small birds flew up into the air as if they had been scared by a predator. “Or predators,” he thought optimistically. He then made a mental note of the location of the disturbance, and he quickly climbed down to the forest floor below. After finding his bearings and the probable location of the disturbance, he broke out into a run through the forest as he sought to make up for lost time.
Now it should be noted that when a giant runs through a forest, the commotion which is created is distinct, and every animal that is in the forest knows what is coming. Mouchard had lost valuable time, and he could not afford to slowly pace through the forest as the prisoners escaped, but the result of his dash into the woodland was far more detrimental to his plan than he could have imagined. At the bottom of a small hill, he found himself staring face to face with a malcoon that had been grazing on a shrub in a thicket. Startled, the beast lifted its head and snuffed out a grunt of disgust at the sudden approach of the giant warrior. Mouchard then looked around quickly in a full circle and discovered that not only was he facing one malcoon, he was in the midst of a herd of malcoon, none of which were happy about being disturbed in the middle of their meal. Unwilling to wait and find out what was coming next, Mouchard bolted up the next hillside and ran as fast as he could over the hilltop and up into a tree on the other side. With the climbing skill of a monkey, Mouchard scaled the tree so fast that it swayed back and forth with his weight, and the small birds that were nesting in it briskly flew away in the bustle of excitement. He then held on tight as the malcoon surrounded the base of the tree and stared up at him in great displeasure.
“With any luck, they will go back to enjoying their lunch,” Mouchard told himself as he looked down at the indignant herd of beasts. From his vantage point, he could see Scalus Mountain. At the base of the peak, there was an overhang of rock that covered over a cave, and he thought that he saw some movement in the shadows below as he scanned the open field that separated the forest from the mountain. “I will check that out next,” he thought as he examined his surroundings. When he looked back down at the herd of malcoon, they returned a glare back up at him, and he realized that he may not be going anywhere for a while. At least not until hunger trumped their annoyance with him.