"It's O.K. Dad—come on!"
Dot's face was white, and her eyes were open wide. He carried her as gently as he could, but she had never been so terribly heavy in his arms.
It happened at the cellar doorway, at the top of the stairs.
He stumbled, fought for balance, fell to one knee, clutched hard and Dot screamed.
But he held her, and her arms were choking at his neck.
And there was a crashing, clanging noise as the power-pack fell from her, caromed from step to step, and lay finally in a shattered ruin on the cellar floor.
CHAPTER XX
Slowly, Doug straightened, descended the stairs with Dot's trembling body still in his arms. The boys stood motionless.
There was only the sound of Dot's quiet sobbing, and that of Doug's boots as they struck hollow sounds from the steel stair treads, moved heavily as though fitted to the legs of an awkward robot to scatter the shattered bits of the power-pack tubes and crush them as they came underfoot.