noon
We went on rapidly , crossed Hedgehog Ridge and descended to Stoss Pond , which the town line crossed obliquely . We had expected to cross the pond on the ice ; but the recent great rainstorm and thaw had flooded the ice to a depth of six or eight inches . New ice was already forming , but it would not quite bear our weight , and we had to make a detour of a mile through swamps round the south end of the pond and pick up the line again on the opposite shore . Stoss Pond Mountain then confronted us , and it was almost noon when we neared Wild Brook ; we heard it roaring as we approached and feared that we should find it very high . `` We may have to fell a tree over it to get across , '' Addison said . So it seemed , for upon emerging on the bank we saw a yellow torrent twenty feet or more wide and four or five feet deep rushing tumultuously down the rocky channel . Tom , however , who had come out on the bank a little way below , shouted to us , above the roar , to come that way , and we rejoined him at a bend where the opposite bank was high .