“O Milly, I do believe they are going to call at our landing!” the younger girl now exclaimed in excitement. “Yes, they are coming right into our creek! Hear the horses’ feet clatter!”
“Perhaps they want to buy something—eggs, or milk, or potatoes,” said Milly. “We have a few eggs. We will go out on the bluff above the landing, and answer if they hail.”
There was a little belt of hickory and oak to pass through, and by the time the two girls had come out on the bluff the keel of our returning arksmen had entered the mouth of the creek, but was passing behind the thick, tall fringe of sycamores that bordered the stream.
A moment later it emerged into the cleared space about the jetty, and there stood Moses on top of the cabin roof. He had discovered them upon the bluff, and was swinging his cap, shouting:
“There’s Milly! There’s Molly!”
Thereupon Marion and Wistar, who were forward with pike-poles, to fend off, and Lewis, who was at the sweep aft, all looked up the bank and joined in Moses’ joyous shouts.
So sudden was the transition from sorrow to joy, it is not strange that instead of rushing down to the landing, the two girls, after a feeble effort to answer, sat down, quite overcome, and burst into tears. When Captain Royce and the others jumped ashore and ran up to where they were, Milly and Molly were found smiling, indeed, but with such wet cheeks that, noting the little black capes, Marion cried, “O Milly, who is dead?”
And it is said that Milly’s faint little reply was, “Nobody, Marion—except—except—you!”
We may be sure that these brave youths were not long convincing the girls that they were still very much alive; and, not only Milly and Molly, but all the rest of the little community. For just then Mrs. Ayer, who had seen the keel heading in, came hastening to the landing. The Hoyt boys’ father also made his appearance, and immediately the glorious news was shouted from house to house.
The last to hear of the safe return of the arksmen was Uncle Amasa. He had broken in the long months of grieving for the disappearance of Jimmy, whom he believed dead, and he came in slowly, with as much heaviness in his heart as he had of sympathy for those whom he was coming to congratulate. But when he neared the group about the landing he saw a figure that made his heart quicken. Jimmy saw him at the same moment.