Rob, as they continued to advance, kept a careful lookout. He wondered whether any sort of patrol could have been stationed at the ruined bridge by one or the other of the hostile armies. It might make considerable difference with them in their intended crossing; and would turn out very awkward if, when they were in the middle of the span, they discovered they were being made targets by some reckless marksmen on the further shore.
Presently they drew up alongside the spot. As Rob had hinted the night was really at an end, and in the east the first peep of coming dawn could be seen in the brightening sky.
"It's a wreck, all right!" said Merritt, as they stood there, straining their eyes to try and follow the outlines of the torn steel girders that seemed to have been twisted into all manner of queer shapes by the force of the explosion.
"Gingersnaps and popguns!" ejaculated Tubby helplessly, "and do you really expect to crawl over that swinging thing? I've read about some awful hanging bridges in the mountains of South America and Africa, but I bet you they couldn't hold a candle alongside this mussed-up affair. Whee! you'd have to blindfold me, I'm afraid, boys, if you expected me to creep out there on that dizzy girder."
"We'll wait a bit till the light gets stronger," Rob counseled, knowing full well that when it came to it Tubby would summon the necessary resolution to cross over, especially if his comrades showed the way.
A quarter of an hour elapsed. By that time they could see across fairly well.
"First of all," Rob summed up, "there doesn't seem to be anybody over there to bother us, that I can notice."
"And the way across isn't so bad, that I can see," announced Merritt, principally to help buoy up the sinking heart of poor Tubby. "Why, all of us have done stunts worse than that. You know we have, Tubby, many a time."
"Well," Tubby answered him weakly, "just as you say, boys. I'm in your hands. I promise to do the best I can to get over; but, if I should slip, please get me out of the river as soon as you can. You know I'm not a cracking good hand at swimming."
Of course they promised, and cheered him up by every means possible; but it was with many doubts that in the end Tubby consented to start forth on the trip.