Tom was more accustomed to being in the woods than either of us; but Addison hesitated about inviting him, for of course if he went we should have to divide the fee with him. However, the old Squire seemed to wish to have him go with us, and at last, while Theodora was putting up a substantial luncheon for us, Ellen ran over to carry the invitation to Tom. He was willing enough to go and came back with her, carrying his shotgun. "It will be a long jaunt," the old gentleman said as we started off. "But if you move on briskly and don't stop by the way, you can get back before dark." The snow crust was so hard and the walking so good that we struck directly across the fields and pastures to the northeast and within an hour reached the town corner on the Silver farm. At that point our tramp along the north line of the town began, and we went from one blazed tree to another and freshened the blazes. We went on rapidly, crossed Hedgehog Ridge and descended to Stoss Pond, which the town line crossed obliquely. We had expected to cross the pond on the ice; but the recent great rainstorm and thaw had flooded the ice to a depth of six or eight inches. New ice was already forming, but it would not quite bear our weight, and we had to make a detour of a mile through swamps round the south end of the pond and pick up the line again on the opposite shore. Stoss Pond Mountain then confronted us, and it was almost noon when we neared Wild Brook; we heard it roaring as we approached and feared that we should find it very high. "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.