Anxious to see if she had found any solution of the problem, the others pelted down a slope and joined her.
"Here's our bridge," said Rona proudly, as soon as they rounded the corner.
"That thing!" exclaimed Winnie, looking aghast at the decidedly slim pole, that was fixed across the stream as a cattle bar.
"I'm not a tight-rope dancer, thank you!" sneered Hattie rather indignantly.
"It'll be quite easy," Rona urged.
"Oh, I dare say! You won't find me trying to walk across it, I can tell you."
"I didn't ask you to walk. I'm going to sit on it cross-legged, like a tailor, and shuffle myself over. It's broad enough for that. I'll go first."
"Oh, I daren't! I'd drop in!" wailed the younger ones in chorus.
"Now don't funk. What two sillies you are! It won't be as hard as you think. Just watch me do it."
Fortunately the pole had two great advantages: it was firmly fixed in the bank on either side, so that it did not sway about, and, being the trunk of a fir-tree with the bark still left on, its surface offered some grip. Rona's progress was slow but steady. She worked herself over by a few inches at a time. When she reached the water's edge on the far side she dropped on to a patch of silver sand and hurrahed.