e that spanned
the river where it crossed Bruce's Road, the short cut to Bruce's Mills.
Here he managed to find a shady spot on the grassy river bank and sat
down to eat the lunch he had brought along.

"What luck!" he grumbled to himself. "Everything's so dis-_gust_-ing-ly
safe!" The way he bit off the syllables showed how tired and
disappointed he was.

He threw the crumbs from his luncheon into the water, hoping the fish
would rise for them; but even the fish were not at all accommodating,
this sunny Hallowe'en. For a while he amused himself by shying stones at
the weather-beaten DANGER sign which was Bruce's only reply to the City
Council's action condemning Red Bridge as unsafe. The bridge was really
on Bruce's land, and nobody knew it better than the great mill owner
himself. So, while the public wondered why the city did not build a
newer and stronger bridge, Bruce had stubbornly insisted to the road
commissioner, "Oh, that bridge'll hold a while longer," and was putting
off spending the money for a new bridge just as long as he could.

Meanwhile the farmers from that part of the country had kept on using
the shaky bridge as a short cut to town by way of Bruce's Mills. One of
them was driving up to the bridge now. Lying on his elbow by the river's
edge, Chance idly watched the old bridge quiver and quake as the light
horse and buggy dragged lazily across.

Suddenly something went kerflop into the water, like a big fish jumping.
Chance sat bolt upright, staring at the dark shadows under the bridge.
There it was again! And this time he saw it was no fish, but a second
brick which had rotted away from the bridge supports underneath the
farther end.

"Phew!" whistled Chance to himself, now fully aroused. "If a light rig
like that shakes the bricks loose, the old thing must be rottener than
it looks! What would a loaded wagon do, I wonder?"

He carefully climbed up under the bridge to see just how bad it really
was, and then climbed out again in a hurry. The whole middle support had
crumbled away. Red Bridge was barely hanging on the weakened brickwork
at the far end, ready to plunge into the river with the next heavy load
that came along!

Bruce, in the meanwhile, was getting impatient. He sat at his desk in
the little office, signing papers as fast as he could shove his pen
across the pages. He glanced again at his watch and gave his call button
a savage punch with his big, blunt forefinger. A buzzer snarled