Like an electric current, strength surged through Mary Bell.
"O God! You've saved 'em, you've got 'em safe!" she sobbed, plunging frantically forward. And she shouted, "All right—all right, darling! Hang on, boys! Just HANG ON! Hal-lo, there! Billy! Davy! Here I am!"
Down in pools, up again, laughing, crying, shouting, Mary Bell reached them at last, felt the heavenly grasp of hard little hands reaching for hers in the dark, brushed her face against Billy Carr's wet little cheek, and flung her arm about Davy Henderson's square shoulders. They had been shouting and calling for two long hours, not ten feet from the fence.
Incoherent, laughing and crying, they clung together. Davy was alert and brave, but the smaller boy was heavy with sleep.
"Gee, it's good you came!" said Davy, simply, over and over.
"You've got your boots on!" she shouted, close to his ear; "they're too heavy! We've got a long pull back, Davy,—I think we ought to go stocking feet!"
"Shall we take off our coats, too?" he said sensibly.
They did so, little Billy stumbling as Mary Bell loosened his hands from the fence. They braced the little fellow as well as they could, and by shouted encouragement roused him to something like wakefulness.
"Is Jim coming?" he shouted.
Mary Bell assented wildly. "Start, Davy!" she urged. "We'll keep him between us. Right along the fence! What is it?" For he had stopped.