Mary-Lou fell on her knees, clutching Loseis’ skirt, babbling incoherently in her terror. Loseis raised her face to the sky, clenching her teeth in despair. How much of this have I got to stand? she was thinking.
Then she saw the Slavis begin to run to the river bank. “Look! Look!” she cried. “Something is coming up the river!”
Mary-Lou scrambled to her feet. Whatever it was in the river, it was approaching close under the bank. They could see nothing. The Slavis were yelling and pointing.
“It is Conacher!” screamed Mary-Lou.
“NO! No! No!” cried Loseis in a voice as taut as an over-stretched violin string. “It is just a Slavi coming up river. Anything is enough to get them going.”
“It is Conacher!” screamed Mary-Lou. “If it was a Slavi they would run down to the water. They stop on the bank. They are a little afraid. See! they look at us. It is somebody for us. It is Conacher!”
Loseis felt that if she allowed herself to believe it and was then disappointed, it would kill her. “No! No!” she said faintly. “It is too soon!”
And then the yellow head rose above the bank.
Loseis collapsed suddenly on the bench and burst into tears. Her whole body was shaken. Mary-Lou fell on her knees with a scream of joy. “Conacher! . . . Conacher!”
Loseis struggled hard to regain her self-control. “Stop that noise!” she said angrily. “Go into the store. He mustn’t think that we want him so badly!”