"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Glidden.
"Don't prognosticate disaster," said Mrs. Potter earnestly; and it occurred to Jack that he had heard more long words during that drive than any one boy could hope to remember.
"Hurrah!" he shouted, a few minutes later. "Link's bridge is there! There's water on both sides of the road, though."
It was an old bridge, like that at Crofield, and it was narrow, and it trembled and shook while the snorting bays pranced and shied their frightened way across it. They went down the slope on the other side with a dash that would have been a bolt if Jack had not been ready for them. Jack was holding them with a hard pull upon the reins, but he was also looking up the Cocahutchie.
"I see what's the matter," he said. "The logs got stuck in a narrow place, and made a dam of their own, and set the water back over the flat. The freshet hasn't reached Mertonville yet. Jingo!"
Bang, crack, crash!—came a sharp sound behind him.
"The bridge is down!" he shouted. "We were only just in time. Some of the logs have been carried down, and one of them knocked it endwise."
That was precisely the truth of the matter; and away went the bays, as if they meant to race with the freshet to see which would first arrive in Mertonville.
"I'm on my way to the city, any how," thought Jack, with deep satisfaction.