surrounded her with competent instructors. Yet Mary Louise had a
passion for mysteries and was never quite so happy as when engaged in
studying a baffling personality or striving to explain a seeming
enigma. Gran'pa Jim, who was usually her confidant when she "scented a
mystery," often accused her of allowing her imagination to influence
her judgment, but on several occasions the girl had triumphantly proven
her intuitions to be correct. You must not think, from this statement,
that Mary Louise was prone to suspect everyone she met; it was only on
rare occasions she instinctively felt there was more beneath the
surface of an occurrence than appeared to the casual observer, and
then, if a wrong might be righted or a misunderstanding removed--but
only in such event--she eagerly essayed to discover the truth. It was
in this manner that she had once been of great service to her friend
Alora Jones, and to others as well. It was this natural quality,
combined with sincere loyalty, which made her long to discover and
bring to justice the author of the pro-German circulars.

Josie O'Gorman was small and "pudgy"--her own expression--red-haired
and freckled-faced and snub-nosed. Her eyes redeemed much of this
personal handicap, for they were big and blue as turquoises and as
merry and innocent in expression as the eyes of a child. Also, the good
humor which usually pervaded her sunny features led people to ignore
their plainness. In dress, Josie was somewhat eccentric in her
selections and careless in methods of wearing her clothes, but this
might be excused by her engrossing interest in people, rather than in
apparel.

The girl was the daughter--the only child, indeed--of John O'Gorman, an
old and trusted lieutenant of the government's secret-service. From
Josie's childhood, the clever detective had trained her in all the
subtle art of his craft, and allowing for her youth, which meant a
limited experience of human nature and the intricacies of crime, Josie
O'Gorman was now considered by her father to be more expert than the
average professional detective. While the astute secret-service agent
was more than proud of his daughter's talent, he would not allow her to
undertake the investigation of crime as a profession until she was
older and more mature. Sometimes, however, he permitted and even
encouraged her to "practise" on minor or unimportant cases of a private
nature, in which the United States government was not interested