But alas! between them and the tents lay a formidable obstacle.

Nothing less than a birch-twig bridge over a rushing stream which filled up the bottom of a wide rift or chasm in the upland.

This chasm stretched right across the upland from a steep rock which blocked up the head of the little valley, and out of which the stream gushed, and there was no way of crossing it, so the shepherd explained by signs, except the birch-twig bridge.

Now a birch-twig bridge is a very terrifying thing to anybody who is not accustomed to them.

It is simply a strong flat plait of birch twigs about nine inches wide which is flung from one side to the other, and which, of course, droops and sags like a rope in the middle.