Matt eyed the bridge with manifest favor; it was simply two logs,—mud sills—connected by three cross-ties, upon which the planking was laid.
"Won't the current trouble us when we reach the river road?" he asked.
"We won't go that way," said Jack. "We'll go through the fields and then along a wood road that goes through the timber. It's half a mile the shorter way, besides being the safer. Come ahead; we'll use our rods for poles to push the raft with."
"Then we've got to knock down fences," said Matt.
"Well," said Jack, who had a conscience in hiding somewhere about him, "we'll come back in a few days, when the flood has gone down, and put them up again. And we'll play the raft is a ram—a regular Merrimac, you know,—and the fences are an enemy's fleet, or a chain stretched across the river. Let's back out and get a good start."
The bridge, which did not draw a foot of water, was backed across the road, one boy stood at each side, and at a signal from Jack it was driven against the fence, through which it crashed most gloriously, sprinkling a dozen fence-rails about the surface of the water.
"Hooray!" shouted Jack, "now for the next one! The Union forever!" and then Jack, while en route for the next fence, finding himself unequal to the task of extemporizing a stirring address to his command, began to quote from "Rolla's Address to the Peruvians," which was considered the gem of that much used book, "The Comprehensive School Speaker"—"My brave associates, partners of my toils, my feelings and my fame, can Rolla's words add fresh vigor to the——"
Just then the raft struck the fence, but this latter being of the "staked and ridered"[[1]] pattern, the result was that the raft came to a sudden standstill, and the crew were thrown flat upon it, their respective heads hanging somewhat astern and in danger of being water-soaked.
[1]. A rail fence across the angles of which two rails meet in X shape, their lowest ends driven into the grounds a little way and a rail lying in the upper angle of the X.
"Blazes!" exclaimed Jack wrathfully, as he endeavored to staunch a bleeding nose, "what did a man need to have a staked and ridered fence just here for? Well, we'll have to push down a couple of stakes and break our way through."