interest. It was a big log spanning the stream, with a shaky railing
nailed to it, made of a long pole attached to several uprights.

"That is the funniest bridge I ever saw," he declared. "Will it hold
you?"

"Look at that log. It would hold a hundred elephants," declared Frane,
Junior, who was inclined to exaggerate a good deal at times.

"Not all at once!" cried Russ.

"Yes, sir. If you could get 'em on it," said Frane. "But I don't s'pose
the railing would stand it."

When the boys went out on the bridge and Russ considered the railing he
was very sure that this last statement of his little friend was true,
whether any others were or not. The railing "wabbled" very much, and
Russ refrained from leaning against it.

"Now, you folks keep back!" whispered Frane shrilly to the colored
children who had followed them. "I want to show him the big fellow that
sleeps down here."

Somewhere he had picked up a piece of bark more than a foot long, which
was rolled into a cylinder. He lay down on the log near the middle of
the brook and began to look down into the brown and rather cloudy water
through this odd spyglass.

"What can you see through that thing?" asked Russ.