Finally, Crocker stopped at a farmhouse and roused the farmer from his sleep by many bangs against the door.
The farmer came down cross and sleepy, but at least Crocker got from him the information that they had heard no auto pass that evening. “And only a fool would be out a night like this,’’ added the man as he slammed the door.
The rain was now beating down and in a minute it was falling in such torrents that the road could not be seen an inch ahead. The roar of the thunder came the moment the zigzag flash was seen gashing across the sky, and even as they gazed in helpless awe, they saw a giant oak ripped limb from limb by the lightning.
Josie O’Gorman shrank back and hid her face. Colonel Hathaway, drawn and gray at the thought of his beloved grandchild out in all the horror of the elements, breathed a prayer for her safety. The two men on the front seat tried in vain to light cigars, and vigorously cursed the luck that brought this storm which would wipe away all traces of the runaway car.
The roadway was now a veritable river, the water surging down from the hill above and whirling about the wheels of the car. It was impossible to stay where they were, so with infinite care, Lonsdale finally turned them about. Then splashing through the flood, feeling every inch of the road, they slowly made their way toward home.
Because of its fury, the storm spent itself quickly. It was with intense relief that they noticed the first signs of first abatement in the slackening of the rainfall and the lessening of the wind. The thunder was already rumbling in the distance, and a whippoorwill sang refreshed from a tree near by. Only the roaring floods along the highway and the stripped oak standing stark and naked in the gathering moonlight remained to show the destruction of that night.
As the searchers went more quickly now, the spirits of the occupants of Lonsdale’s car were more depressed than ever. Their search was absolutely fruitless.
Suddenly not far ahead of them they saw the faint gleam of the red light of an auto. Putting on speed they splashed along regardless of the smoothness or the roughness of the road. Then Grandpa Jim gave an exclamation of rejoicing.
“It’s Mary Louise’s car!” he cried.
Faster went the Lonsdale car, gaining, ever gaining on its object. Now they honked the horn repeatedly but the escapers evidently paid no heed. Though their speed did not seem to increase, neither did it slacken.
“Better not run a risk of their escaping again,” muttered Crocker, and leaning carefully over the side of the car he fired two shots into the rear tire of the machine. The effect was instantaneous. With a loud explosion, the car swerved quickly, slowed down and then came to a dead stop.
CHAPTER XV
A JOURNEY BEGUN
When Will White and Jim O’Hara realized that Lonsdale’s machine had driven on, their relief was unbounded.
O’Hara turned to Will White and said: “I know that you are doing this entirely for the sake of that boy of mine, but I trust that you will never have a moment’s regret that you have aided my escape.”
“It ain’t nothin’ a-tall,” commented Will, chewing his quid with energy. “It’s been my hope that some time I could do something for Dan Dexter, and when he come to me this evenin’ ter tell me of his fix, why I sure was there to help with bells on.”
“It was splendid,” responded O’Hara, “and you were the one man of all others upon whom suspicion would fall last. All the same you ran a risk.”
“All the same, Dan Dexter ran some risk when he saved my life out there in No-Man’s Land,”
returned Will briefly. And seeming to feel that the final word had been said, be turned his undivided attention to the road.
O’Hara, too, all this time had been peering anxiously ahead, fearing to see through the heavy-falling rain the headlight of the approaching locomotive. It did not appear, however, and even through the wildest part of the storm the little ford plunged on.
“You’ll let me off at the water tank,” directed O’Hara, by this time so restless that he could hardly remain seated. “I’ll climb on the train from there,” and his long fingers trembled as they gripped the handbag on his knees.
Slowly and steadily, nearer to the junction came the Ford, although to the impatient man each turn of the wheel seemed an eternity.
The storm had made every landmark invisible. They had no way of gauging where they were. Still the wheels kept turning, turning; and that was at least something.
Then above the storm, above the noise of the engine, even above the loud beating of the refugee’s heart, there came to him the shrill shriek of a locomotive.
“We’re late — too late,” he almost shrieked; for at that moment he realized as never before, all that bis liberty — the chance to start life again and to repay Danny — meant to him.
But Will White, accustomed as he was to his surroundings, had seen what the older man had failed to notice — the hulking shape of the water tower to their left.
Turning sharply, he ran the car over ditches, shying at a fence, full speed right up to the very track. Here he stopped abruptly with the emergency brake.
He was none too soon. The huge snake of the Santa Fe Limited was crawling and writhing in its slow start for the distant desert. Without a glance behind, without a second’s pause, O’Hara leaped from the Ford, and in two steps he reached the handrail and swung onto the rear platform of the Limited.
His journey had begun.
As Lonsdale’s slowed up beside the punctured machine, Mary Louise popped her head out of the door.
“Well, of all things,” shouted the Chief of Police, as Danny Dexter’s head appeared beside the girl’s. “Why in thunder didn’t you stop when you heard the honking? The thunder hasn’t deafened you, has it?”
“Honking?” gently inquired Mary Louise. “Honking?” echoed Danny in dignified inquiry.
A grim smile twitched the corners of Lonsdale’s mouth as he looked at the softened, preoccupied expressions of the two of them.
“Yes, honking,” he mimicked them; then hastened to add, “but only honking loud enough to raise the dead.”
At this point Colonel Hathaway managed to extricate himself from the robes and the sou’wester which engulfed him, and had come around to Mary Louise’s side. At sight of him she gave a little cry of joy and concern.
“Oh, Grandpa Jim, dear Grandpa Jim, you’ve been out in all this storm to hunt me,” she said, as she flung her arms tenderly about his neck.
The Colonel surreptitiously wiped away a couple of tears, and then patted the top of Mary Louise’s head.
“There, there, lassie,” he said quietly, as Mary Louise continued to burrow her head in his shoulder; “we have you safe and sound again.”
Then turning sternly to Danny, who stood rather white and very much mud-bespattered, he said, “What have you to say for yourself, young man?”
Mary Louise’s head came up with a jerk. All through this silent drive at Danny’s side she had been revolving in her thoughts just what she would say to clear Danny and turn suspicion from his uncle. Her testing time had come sooner than she expected, but she was ready. She stepped between Danny Dexter and her grandfather as though to protect the former.
As she did so, a fleeting vision crossed her mind of the broken old man out somewhere in the night. Had he caught his west-bound train? She wished she knew the answer.
“Grandpa Jim,” she said, distinctly and without effort, “let me tell you all about it; for I’m the one that Danny saved.”
As she spoke they all gathered around her in the road, regardless, in fact, unconscious, of the mud and wet. Josie drew nearest and slipped her arm through Mary Louise’s, as she talked.
“I couldn’t sleep when I went upstairs tonight,” continued Mary Louise, “so I sat at the window and finally went into the garden. There I saw a light in the garage, and thinking that my car was safe I ran toward it. As I reached the door a very tall, dark man jumped out and told me to keep quiet. When I started to scream he put his hand over my mo
uth and lifted me into the car and started off.
“The next thing I knew Danny jumped out from the roadside onto the running board. The big, dark man didn’t seem to want to fight, just to get away. Putting on the brake he jumped out and ran off in the dark, — that way,” added Mary Louise, and waved a hand indefinitely eastward.
At this point Crocker and Lonsdale lost all interest in the tale of Mary Louise. Their man was escaping east on foot.
“Will you drive Colonel Hathaway and Miss O’Gorman home with you?” crisply ordered Crocker of Danny. “We’ll continue the search for O’Hara.” He and Lonsdale leaped in the Chief’s car and were off.
Colonel Hathaway turned to Danny with a word of thanks. “You may have saved her life, my boy,” he said. At which, let it be recorded, Danny had the grace to blush.
But as for Mary Louise, she never did have one regret for that fib she told. In fact, as Danny helped her back into the automobile and his warm fingers closed upon her little hand in a sudden quick pressure of gratitude, the conscience of Mary Louise troubled her not at all. She had done the right thing. Both her heart and her mind told her so.
CHAPTER XVI
AUNT SALLY ENTERTAINS
As the returning search party came within sight of the Hathaway home, they saw that it was brilliantly lighted and the fat, comfortable shadow of Aunt Sally could be seen waddling back and forth in front of the kitchen window.
“Hurrah!” shouted Josie. “Aunt Sally sure is on the job and we won’t go hungry!”
They knew her surmise to be correct the minute they opened the door, for the smell of frying chicken and delicious coffee was wafted to their nostrils.
To Danny, who had eaten nothing all that day, and who had hastily consumed only a few hard, dry sandwiches the day before, the odor was like a breath of heaven. Hurrying back to his old tower room, he flung off the mud-stained livery with loathing, and gloried in a piping hot tub.
Then he quickly slipped into a neat, well-tailored suit of quiet brown. It was the first time Mary Louise would see him really dressed and, boyishly, we wanted very much to have her satisfied.
When he entered the dining room a few minutes later, Mary Louise was also entering from the hall, and from the soft blush with which she greeted him one would surmise that Mary Louise was satisfied. As for herself, Mary Louise had never looked so lovely. Her soft, dark curls, still a bit damp from the rain, had been caught at the top of her head and held there by a narrow band of pink. It gave her quite the look of a little woman, or perhaps it was the startled, wistful and yet happy expression of her lovely eyes, under which lay violet shadows, that caused the old Colonel to realize with a start that Mary Louise had suddenly grown up. She had slipped on a quite grown-up garment, a soft and clinging tea gown of shell pink chiffon, and she entered the room a little wearily and very shyly.
It seemed to the surprised Danny that there had never been any one so lovely in the whole wide world before.
“Bless ma soul,” Aunt Sally was fussing as she placed one wonderful dish after another upon the table in true Southern style. “Bless ma soul, Aunt Sally knowed as when dev brung the little missy home dead or alive she would be hungry.”
The platter of chicken, fried to a perfect brownness, was placed before the Colonel, and the voice of Aunt Sally called through the butler’s pantry, “Eben, you lazy ole niggah, bring in de candied yams.”
Uncle Eben did so, just as Josie came bouncing down the stairs fastening the final hook to the crumpled linen dress as she came. “Oh, dear Aunt Sally, how perfectly delicious everything does look, and I never, never before ate dinner at two o’clock in the morning.”
Just then the honk of an auto was heard outside. This time both Mary Louise and Danny were aware of the disturbance, so evidently their sense of hearing was not permanently impaired. In a moment the door opened and two tired, disgusted and discouraged men entered.
But the insidious aroma of that coffee of Aunt Sally’s seeped even through their depression, and with a “God bless Aunt Sally,” Lonsdale and Crocker both decided that life was probably worth living after all.
It was in fact a very happy party which gathered around the table at the places Mary Louise had assigned to them, with a new little touch of dignity that became her well.
Directly after dinner Aunt Sally insisted on taking Mary Louise off to rest, and with a sleepy little “good-night” to them all, Mary Louise was led away and tucked in bed as tenderly as when she was a little child.
With her departure the room seemed very queer and empty, and Danny suddenly realized how tired he was himself. So with a good-night to the Colonel he was off to his tower room and to the soundest of deep slumbers.
Not so with Josie O’Gorman. She was on a job and until her work was finished she would need no rest. As Crocker was pulling on his gloves preparatory to leaving she faced him squarely.
“Is there one bit of use for either you or me working on this case any longer?” she inquired. “If there is, I’m willing to stay and help, but if there isn’t, I guess there’re more important things for both of us in Washington.”
“You’re right, you are,” agreed Crocker most definitely. “I hate like the devil to give up the case but the man could hide here in the dunes indefinitely, and I haven’t time to wait.”
“Of course,” added Josie, “the auto theft solved itself; they didn’t really need me.”
“I’m not so sure, you gave them confidence and courage when they needed it,” said Crocker, kindly, and reaching out a huge hand in friendly farewell, “you’re a game youngster and I hope I run across you often.” And Crocker strode down the front stairs to the waiting Lonsdale.
Josie turned back into the hall, glancing at Danny’s cap that had been left on the hall tree, and at the little parasol of Mary Louise’s leaning near it. A whimsical smile flashed over her face.
“Well,” she soliloquized, “I’ve not made very much out of this case, but at least I’ve detected one thing — and that is the way the wind blows in that quarter.”
With an all-inclusive glance at the parasol and cap she fled up the stairs.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST
The sun was away up in the sky and was flooding her room with a warm radiance when Mary Louise awoke. The soft twitter of the birds and the clip-clip of a lawn mower next door came in through the windows. Stretching her slender body and yawning prodigiously, she clambered out of bed. The breeze was softly fluttering the curtains, and a tiny moss rosebud which had climbed that high, tapped alluringly against the sill of the open window.
Mary Louise decided that it was a very wonderful world to be out in, and that she would hurry and get dressed. In a short time she entered the dining-room to tell Aunt Sally she would have her breakfast.
Suddenly she stopped short in sheer amazement at the table. Then the recollection came to her. To be sure, to-day was her birthday! How like Grandpa Jim to plan this surprise for her, and how like Aunt Sally to carry it out so beautifully! The huge round mahogany table was covered with a cloth of exquisite lace. In a low basket in the center of the table, dozens of pale pink rosebuds were clustered together, their graceful little heads bobbing in all directions about the handle of the basket. A tiny rosebud nestled at all of the eight plates, to give a dainty welcome to each young girl invited to Mary Louise’s birthday breakfast.
Out in the garden Mary Louise caught a glimpse of her grandfather and Josie O’Gorman walking arm in arm along the garden paths, and out she rushed to them.
“What a perfectly beautiful surprise,” sang Mary Louise as she caught up with them.
“Happy Birthday!” they both called out to her as in one breath.
Then the guests began to arrive. Irene came first from the house next door, her wheel chair coming easily over the gravel path. She gave Mary Louise a very tender birthday kiss, and pressed upon her a large box filled with delicious home-made candy.
“Aunty Hannah a
nd I made it for you this morning, dear Mary Louise,” she said.
“How lovely!” cried Mary Louise, her eyes asparkle with excitement and delight, and running to the gate, she met the other guests who were just arriving. Each brought a little gift to tell their love for Mary Louise. Laura Hilton brought an ingenious toy automobile with a uniformed tin driver very erect at the wheel.
Aunt Sally appeared at this moment to ask them in to breakfast, so the laughing, happy girls went in, their bright-hued gowns making a veritable rainbow about the table.
“And now,” cried Alora, leaning across the table, “we’ve waited just as long as we possibly can; tell us all about the automobile.”
“Yes, and the thief,” added Lucile Neal, eagerly.
Mary Louise most wisely held her peace. Instead of explaining she turned to Josie O’Gorman saying, “Goodness, don’t ask me to tell you when we have a regular unraveler of mysteries there to spin the yarn for us.”
“To be sure,” exclaimed Phoebe Phelps. “Josie, be careful to tell us every single word.” So Josie, nothing loth, told her own version of the missing car, that version being just what Mary Louise wished it to be. So the recounting was highly satisfactory to all.
As they talked and exclaimed, Aunt Sally served one delicious course after another, and the happy, healthy girls enjoyed it all.
As they left the dining room and strolled out on to the wide veranda, resting in the wide and roomy swing or in the lounging cretonne chairs, Josie said, with regret in her voice: “Girls, I’m sorry, hut I’ve got to go back to Washington on the next train.”
“Oh, Josie,” wailed Mary Louise; “must you really leave on my beautiful birthday?” But realizing it was useless to try to dissuade her, she added: “Well, anyway, we’ll all pile into the car and take you to the station.”
“Yes, luckily we’ve got the car to pile into,” echoed Josie.
So with a great deal of laughter and much chatter the Liberty Girls adjourned to the garage.
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 632