"We may have to fell a tree over it to get across," Addison said.
So it seemed, for upon emerging on the bank we saw a yellow torrent
twenty feet or more wide and four or five feet deep rushing tumultuously
down the rocky channel.
Tom, however, who had come out on the bank a little way below, shouted
to us, above the roar, to come that way, and we rejoined him at a bend
where the opposite bank was high. He was in the act of crossing
cautiously on a snow bridge. During the winter a great snowdrift, seven
or eight feet deep, had lodged in the brook; and the recent freshet had
merely cut a channel beneath it, leaving a frozen arch that spanned the
torrent.
"Don't do it!" Addison shouted to him. "It will fall with you!"
But, extending one foot slowly ahead of the other, Tom safely crossed to
the other side.
"Come on!" he shouted. "It will hold."
Addison, however, held back. The bridge looked dangerous; if it broke
down, whoever was on it would be thrown into the water and carried
downstream in the icy torrent.
"Oh, it's strong enough!" Tom exclaimed. "That will hold all right." And
to show how firm it was, he came part way back across the frozen arch
and stood still.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131