She moved over to let Danny have the wheel and O’Hara stepped into the back.
“Danny,” whispered Mary Louise, as she leaned toward him confidingly on the return trip, “do you think it will be necessary for Uncle Jim to leave the United States now? After risking his life the way he did to secure those papers, don’t you think the government would be lenient in his case?”
“I hope so,” said Danny in a low tone. “As you know, all Uncle Jim wants is a chance to make good and rectify his old mistake, and I hardly think they will refuse him that.”
“They shouldn’t,” said Mary Louise with conviction. “It would be mean if they did.”
Danny glanced sideways at the girl, whose brow showed a few tiny furrows.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your interest in Uncle Jim,” Danny said. “I want you to know that we have both talked the matter over, and I have persuaded Uncle Jim to remain in Albuquerque until the government has acted in the case of Henry Brown and his treasonable outfit. He will certainly be needed as a witness if the government apprehends them and they are brought to trial.”
“I can be of some assistance to him, too,” said Mary Louise. “After I tell Josie O’Gorman all that has happened, I know she will feel very different about your uncle. Maybe she can interest her father in the case, and no man in the department at Washington has more influence then John O’Gorman.”
As the two young people sat conversing in low tones, heads close together, a soft smile played about the corners of James O’Hara’s lips. Did he see in the charming tableau before him a reflection of his own lost youth? Perhaps. Out of the dim past, recollections of his own youthful romance may have arisen, luring his mind to years long gone by.
Danny and Mary Louise kept up an intermittent fire of conversation as “Queenie” sped along the sinuous roadway that led to Albuquerque. Now and then, the lovely girl, her face wreathed in smiles, would turn around and address a word or two to the quiet man in the rear.
In less than an hour’s time, the little machine, under Danny’s practised hand, had reached the outskirts of the busy New Mexican town, which now lay wrapped in night. A few minutes more and the car drew up at the hotel entrance. After a final few minutes of hurried conversation and a chorus of “good-nights,” Mary Louise darted into the entrance and ran straight up to her room. Ten minutes later she was in the depths of slumber.