"Matter enough," said Tom. For, turning a sharp corner just ahead of them, was a huge wood-cart, drawn by two struggling horses. The road was just wide enough for one vehicle; where their wagon stood, it would have been simply impossible to place two abreast. At their right, the wooded slope rose like a wall. At their left, a gorge two hundred feet deep yawned horribly, and the trout-brook gurgled over its stones. "You hold on there," shouted the driver of the wood-cart; "I'll turn in here anigh the mountain. You ken git by t'other side, can't you?" "Reckon so," said Mr. Surly, measuring the distance with his eye. He climbed in again, and took the reins, and the driver of the wood-cart wheeled up into a semi-circular widening of the road where a sand-heap had been dug away. The space left was just wide enough for a carriage to pass closely without grazing the wheels of the wood-cart, or the low log which formed the only fence on the edge of the ravine. "Oh, we shall certainly tip over and be killed! Oh dear, let me get out!" cried Sarah, as the wagon passed slowly forward. "Hush up!" said Gypsy, quickly. "Tom won't let us go, if you act so. Don't you suppose four grown men know better than we do whether it's safe? I'm not afraid a bit." Nevertheless, Gypsy and Tom, and even Mr. Hallam, looked narrowly at the old frail log, and down into the gorge where the water was gurgling. Once the wheels grazed the log, and it tilted slightly. Sarah screamed aloud. Mr. Surly knew what he was about, however, and knew how to do it. He passed on safely into the wider road, and the wood-cart rattled composedly on. "There a'r'd a ben a purty close shave in the night," he remarked, coolly, pointing with his whip down the precipice. "There was a team went down here five years ago,--jist off that maple-tree there,--horse, wagin, and all, an'clock two men, brothers they was, too; one man hung onto a branch or suthin'clock, and was ketched and saved; t'other one got crushed to jelly. It was a terrible dark night." Even Gypsy gave a little shiver during this entertaining conversation, and was glad they had come up in the daytime. Mr. Surly drove to a certain by-road in the woods, where he left them, and returned home; and the party proceeded on foot, with their baggage, to the place Mr. Hallam had chosen as a camp-ground. It was a pleasant spot, far enough in the woods to be still and wild, near enough to the little settlement on top of the mountain to be free from bears, as Sarah had required to be informed ten separate times, on the way. There was a little, natural clearing among the trees, which Mr. Hallam and Tom made larger by cutting down the shrubbery and saplings. They had brought hatchets with them, as well as guns, knives, and fish-hooks. It seemed very warlike and real, Gypsy thought--quite as if they intended to spend the rest of their lives there. She almost wished a party of Indians would come and attack them, or a bear or a wolf.