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Everyone turned to look atpieces of wood and shaking out lengths of rope In the circle around ned I felt the cold of the day and the chill of my small command’s doubt I suddenly knew they wouldn’t follow me, and worse, that neither Spink nor Trist had the real knowledge of how to build a bridge We were all going to fail because I had failed ," Spink said to Kort As they ave me a wink It both reassured and annoyed me It see, I could corateful for his support, but I wanted to be able to lead regardless of whether I had it or not I longed to kno he and Trist made others want to follow them What did I lack?

There was no tiiven us a motley pile of resources As Trist had noted, there was only one piece of luh to span the creek One patrol was already taking the easiest and round so it reached froht of the first cadet who tried to cross it and spilled him into the half-frozen muck The cadet who had fallen into Tiler’s Creek clambered back out, coated in filth, wet, even colder now than he had been, and dispirited His fellows hooted at hi silently on a nearby bench reading a book, lifted his eyes, pursed his lips, and shook his head at theht back a smile Without a word, he took a pipe froan to fill it with tobacco

I, too, shook my head Maw, I suspected, had a different solution inmodels now seemed almost insurmountable How easy it was to reach down from above a model and carefully fix a tiny plank into place I suddenly saw the real first step in solving the problem "We need at least two men to cross to the other side," I announced "We can’t build a bridge working just froo It was a steep clih scrabble up the other side Whoever as going to get his uniforlanced up and down the creek There were no bridges in sight Through the muck was the only option "Two of us, at least, have to wade across"

"Not ht before Dark Evening I have plans for the days off and they don’t include fussing about with otten the lesson I’d just learned I should have issued orders to two of the cadets, not opened it up for discussion I didn’t want to set a good exa, I had the very sa to stay clean that Trist had But just as important to me was that I wanted to stay where the materials were so that I could co plan I took a breath and teo just yet, Trist We have to determine whattwo ood"

"The others have already started, and we’re just standing here talking," Oron coht I saw that one patrol was busily nailing crosspieces to their long plank Did they think that wouldso that they had two long planks I looked at ours again, stood it up, and shook it It wavered Even two of the capacity to be the foundation for a successful bridge "There’s no sense in doing anything until we have a definite plan," I told the others "And so plank is at the heart of it I think it’s a distraction What if we didn’t have this piece of wood? What would we be doing?"

We all looked at our pile of supplies with new eyes "Rope bridge," Rory announced

I nodded "We’ll anchor it to those saplings But we still need a tea at the other end"

Rory knelt down and began to unfasten the rope from its coil The others made similar "busy" motions I took a breath It was time to command, and I had no faith that anyone would follow my orders Not unless I physically led the way "Spink and Caleb You’re wading across with ive me one end of that line"

"What do you need us for?" Caleb demanded piteously

I refused to answer He shouldn’t have been questioning orders and I wasn’t going to indulge hio," I told them