"That's right!" agreed several of the men.
"Well," went on the boy, "it would be pretty easy to get a tree half-way across, wouldn't it? Drop a tree in the river, fasten the butt end to shore, and then let the top sweep out into the stream, fastening the rope when it was out at a sharp angle up stream."
"Any fool can do that," said one of the party scornfully, "but you might just as well be on this side as only half-way across."
"Dry up, Hank, and don't get grouchy," said the first speaker, "the boy isn't through."
"I thought then," continued Roger, with a grateful glance at his ally, "that another tree could be cut down, away up the river, butt end first. Two ropes on, same as the other. Then, keeping the top down stream and checking off the ropes gradually, the current would sweep the tree to the other side of the stream. Let it float until the branches of the second tree interlocked with those of the first, held tight in the middle of the stream. Then slack up the butt end of the second tree, and as it swung round it would hit the bank on the further shore, and there is your bridge made."
"That would read all right in a book," grumbled the discontented one, "but a river like that isn't any child's kite business."
"But I didn't get it out of a book," replied the boy, a little hotly. "Mr. Herold, the geographer, told me that, and said that it had been done on some of the swollen streams of the Glacier National Park in Montana, where the streams are hard to cross."
His former friend also came to the boy's support.
"There is a lot of chance work in it," he said quietly, "but the plan sounds all right to me. Of course, if the second tree behaves like you say it should it would be all right, but there isn't any guaranty that it will. But it's worth the trying, and anything's better than standing here like a lot of dummies waiting for somebody to come along and tell us what to do."
One of the members of the party having been detailed to look up two suitable trees, and another to find out the narrowest and most convenient place in the river, it was not long before the two trees were down and dragged to their respective places on the bank. Roger's friend desired him to assume direction of the work, which Roger refused to do.