“I’m all right, little daughter,” replied General Gordon, smiling, though his face did not relax into its usual calm confidence.
“Come and see Michelle and her brother?” Lucy urged. Her eyes held a sudden anxiety which she tried to put from her as she made the introductions and listened to her father’s pleasant talk with her friends.
Armand was looking tired and in a moment Michelle led him away to rest. General Gordon, Lucy and Larry walked over to the cottage and sat down in one corner of the bare little parlor.
Almost at once Lucy put the question trembling on her lips. “Father, there’s something wrong! Please tell me?”
“I’m sorry—on Christmas Day,” began General Gordon reluctantly. Then at Lucy’s frightened eyes he added quickly, “It’s not so very bad, Lucy. They say he’s all right. Greyson telegraphed me to-day from Archangel. Bob had a fall in his plane and has broken his leg. Greyson assures me there is no danger. He will send word again to-morrow.”
Lucy’s cheeks flamed with the desperate effort to keep back her tears. Her heart was pounding in her throat and she dared not try to speak. But in spite of herself the tears overflowed her eyes and glistened on her lashes when she heard Larry’s troubled voice beside her and felt her father catch her hand in his warm, firm clasp. She gave a quick, grateful sob.
“You know how we feel, Larry,” she said, looking up at him as she winked away her tears.
CHAPTER III
SCOUTING ON THE DWINA
“Twenty below zero,” said Bob, as he brushed the icicles from the thermometer outside the door of his shack, “and it’s the twenty-third of December. How low does it fall, I wonder, Denby?”