nd
shook his head again. Finally he began to chew violently, rubbed his
stomach and grinned.

The shepherd grinned too and rubbed _his_ stomach, whereupon
Foster-father turned triumphantly to Head-nurse.

"Said I not sooth, woman," he asked. "Hunger hath a tongue of its own,
and all men know it."

Once begun, signs soon brought so much understanding, that, whistling to
his dog, the shepherd started down the hill at a great pace, beckoning
them to follow.

"Not so fast, friend, not so fast!" panted Foster-father, "we be not all
born on a mountain as thou art. And there are women and children, too."
He pointed to poor Head-nurse and Foster-mother, who were indeed
dropping with fatigue, and the man seemed to understand, for he pulled
up. But he had to keep some way off because his dog, who kept close as a
shadow to his master's heels, never ceased growling. So they tramped on
wearily until just below them they saw a _marg_ or mountain upland,
where some goats were grazing. One part of this dipped down into a
little valley, and there, in the shelter of some huge rocks, they saw
two or three small brown blanket tents, such as shepherds use on the
Beluchistan hills. They were just like waggon tilts only not so large.

Here, at any rate, was prospect of food and rest, and the poor
travellers brisked up again. 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. Into this plait are stuck
every few feet or so cross sticks, and to these sticks a rope is
fastened as a sort of hand rail. Across such a bridge as this the hill
children walk as easily as an English child does over a great brick
span; but Head-nurse resolutely refused to set foot over it herself,
much less to allow the Heir-to-Empire to risk his neck on such an
appallingly dangerous structure. In vain Foster-father,