He tied the horses to two pine-trees, some distance apart from each other. Then he tried the bridge. It seemed firm. Garda, refusing his offers of assistance, crossed lightly and fearlessly behind him. Some of the twigs still remained on the old trunk, and she lifted her skirt so that they should not catch upon it and cause her to stumble; when they had gone nearly three-quarters of the distance, Winthrop, turning his head to speak to her, saw that she wore low slippers, thin-soled papery little shoes fit only for a carpeted floor. "You must not go among the bushes in those shoes," he said. "The bushes over there are sure to be wet; all that ground is wet." "Don't stop on the bridge," said Garda, laughing. But he continued to bar the way. "I will bring you the flowers," he said. "I don't want the flowers, I want to go myself to the top of that ridge, and look down on the other side." "There's nothing to see on the other side." "That makes no difference. Go on. Go on." He turned round; cautiously, for the bridge was slippery and narrow. They were now face to face. "I shall never yield," Garda declared, gayly. "But I shall make _you_ yield. Easily." "How?" "By telling you that if you do not go on, I shall jump into the water, and get to the other bank in that way." He laughed. But as he did so he suddenly felt a conviction come over him, owing to an expression he saw in her eyes, that she was capable of carrying out her threat. He seized her hands; but she wrested them from his grasp; and as she did so he had a vision of her figure in the water below. He could easily rescue her, of course; but it would be a situation whose pleasures he should fail to appreciate, both of them wet through, and many miles from home. She had no sooner freed her hands, therefore, than he took a firmer hold of her, so that she could not stir. But she still openly exulted; her face, close to his, was brilliant with light and mirth. "That's of no use," she said. "You cannot possibly walk backward on this narrow tree, even if you could carry me--which I doubt." It was true that his back was towards the bank which was near, the one they had been approaching, and that he could not make his way thither on that narrow surface without seeing where he was going. He had flushed a little at her taunt. "I can carry you back to the side we started from," he said. "No, you cannot do that, either. For I could easily blind you with my hands, and make you stumble." "Garda!--how absurd!" "Yes; but it's _you_ who look so," she answered, bursting into a peal of irrepressible glee.