The wilderness of
pine forest had been left on the right after leaving Lone Pine, and the
trail led down gradually to a bottomland of brilliant green herbage.
Directly over this emerald valley ran a corduroy roadway.
"There must have been a brook under this at one time!" stated Eleanor,
finding the logs partly embedded in caked mud.
"No, this too, is built by our forest-rangers who help the timber jacks
build these roads. You see, while frost holds good the heaviest tree
trunks can be readily moved over icy swamp bottoms, but in the spring,
when thaw and freshets begin, the bottoms are more like a marsh, or
shallow lake, than anything else I know of. Then these corduroy roads
are a make-shift for hard ground," explained Polly, while Noddy started
to clip-clop over the firmly-set logs.
"Why don't the men wait for the next frost?" asked Barbara.
"Hoh! Don't you know the trees would be worthless if they were left for
a season? Decay and mold or worms would destroy the finest wood.
Besides, these logs, or poles, laid side by side in the mud, soon get
to be as solid as a rock, for the mud, oozing up between the chinks of
the logs, dries out and leaves them baked tight in the grooves."
Having heard the way this novel roadway was made, the girls took a
lively interest in crossing it. No more questions were asked until
Polly reached the trail that led up through the forest. Then Eleanor
spoke.
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