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 ben 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, he 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 his 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 to-night,” 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
mouth 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, Denny
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.