Ralph, the Train Dispatcher: or, The Mystery of the Pay Car

CHAPTER XVI – THE WRECK

The battered locomotive continued its course for nearly half a mile, with engineer and fireman crouching back on the coal of the tender. There was a diversion of the circling driving rod as the pace slackened.

Then a violent hissing sound told of a leak somewhere in the machinery. The great steel locomotive slowed down like a crippled giant.

“She’s dead,” said Roberts, choking a queer sound way down in his throat. “Old 93!”

Ralph jumped to the ground and the fireman after him. The latter went all around the stalled locomotive, shaking his head mournfully.

Ralph hastened ahead out of the glare of the headlight and peered down the rails. For nearly two minutes he stood, shading his eyes with one hand to bring the disappearing runaway within focus. The wild engine had sped on its way untrammeled. He made out that she had slowed up. In the distance he fancied he saw a brisk form spring from the cab. Ralph figured it out that a switch had been set.

Then the runaway started again. He fancied that some one jumped from the cab after the engine had got in motion. He could catch the sharp clack-clack of the flying wheels ringing in the distance.

“She is running wild now,” murmured the intent young railroader, and then started with a shock.

A horrid clamor extended out. It must have been a mile away, but the air was death-like, it was so still, and the merest sound seemed to vibrate clearly.

Crash, crash, crash! It sounded as if a building had collapsed against other tottering structures, tumbling them all into a mass of ruins.

“They’ve done it, whatever it is,” said Ralph, and ran back speedily to No. 93 and Roberts. The latter stood with his ear bent in the direction of the runaway, and his usually jolly face was serious.

“What’s up, Fairbanks?” he asked at once.

“A smashup, I judge,” answered Ralph. “Can you dig out any lanterns?”

“Red?”

“Yes.”

“Those two on the end of the tender are all right. There’s another under my seat, if it hasn’t got smashed.”

“Run back with the two and signal both tracks,” ordered Ralph. “I’m going ahead to see what has happened.”

Ralph fished among the litter in the dismantled cab and found and lit the lantern referred to by Roberts. Then he started ahead down the tracks.

When he arrived at the switch he could trace that it had recently been set for a siding. A little farther on footsteps in the snow showed where some one had jumped from the runaway locomotive. Ralph paused at this spot for only a moment. He went down the siding, which curved in and out among a series of bluffs and gullies.

As he remembered it, the siding was not of great length, and ended at the side of a granite pit. A last turn brought him in full view of this. Ralph paused, a good deal wonderstruck.

Thirty feet down at the bottom of the gully lay a tangled wreckage of wood and iron. There had apparently stood two cars where the runaway had struck.

One of them held a derrick outfit, the other some heavy excavating machine. The two cars had been forced headlong into the abyss. The runaway engine piling down upon them had completed the work of ruin.

“I can’t understand it,” spoke Ralph, after a long spell of inspection and thought. “What possible object could any one have in view in smashing up that machinery?”

Then it occurred to him that his pursuit of the runaway might have frightened its operator from his original purpose, and he had changed his plans and abandoned the locomotive to its later course.

“A pretty bill for the Great Northern to settle, all the same,” reflected Ralph, as he started back the way he had come.

At the switch he turned the target to open main, and made his way forward till he reached No. 93. Roberts had set the danger signals behind them, and he stood on the side of the embankment dismally surveying the wreck of his pet locomotive. Ralph told him of the situation ahead.

“I can’t understand it,” confessed the puzzled fireman.

“No more can I,” said Ralph. “I wish we could have caught the man who got away, though.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Wait for instructions, of course. There is nothing due out or in for some time to come, unless the Limited comes on. The out track is clear for her, if she does. We must get word to Preston, some way.”

“That isn’t far away,” suggested Roberts.

“Too far to cover in any reasonable time. I want to get at your tool box, Roberts.”

“All right.”

Ralph secured a pair of pliers from the box in the cab, and went up the embankment to where the telegraph wires ran. He selected a rough pole, ascended it nimbly, and soon sat astride of the crosstrees.

The young railroader located the main service wire and began to pry it apart where there had been a splice on the insulator. When he had it separated he knew from the contact that it was in live use. Putting end to end, he began to tap off what he wanted to say.

Ralph did not know what business he might be breaking in upon. He was pretty sure that his message would be taken notice of somewhere along the line. When he had completed and repeated his message he put the end of one wire to his tongue. The vibrations were vague, but sensitive, and he knew that he had stirred up the service, and operators on the line towards headquarters were getting busy. He readjusted the wires and descended to the ground.

“Doing some stunts, aren’t you?” observed Roberts, with a commending smile.

“I’m trying to get things in order,” replied Ralph.

“It’s you for it, every time,” declared the friendly fireman. “Wish I had brains.”

“Some one will be sure to come to your relief before long,” said Ralph. “I have done all I can to open up the line, but I think I had better get to Preston and in direct communication with headquarters.”

“It’s a long trip,” suggested Roberts.

“That can’t be helped. I will set my red lantern half a mile ahead on the in track, for fear they don’t quite understand the situation at Preston.”

“So long; you’re a good one,” nodded Roberts approvingly.

Ralph started on his way, set the lantern and accomplished a mile without meeting with any further adventures. It was when he was about two miles on his course when that whistling in the rear caused him to halt and watch and wait.

In about five minutes the Limited whisked by, making up time. Ralph was pretty thoughtful as he followed in her trail after she had passed on.

There were a good many angles to the exploit of the night to figure out. His independent course in trying to stop the runaway might result in some censure, though he fancied not.

The identity of the wrecker and his motive were what puzzled the young railroader.

Ralph trudged on, thinking of all this, when, crossing a bridge, he peered closely over to where a light was flashed and then a second. Some one was igniting matches, apparently to light a pipe. He made out one, then two vague forms a short distance down the shore of the creek.

It was a pretty early hour of the morning for any one to be tramping around for fun. As Ralph thought of the man who had abandoned the runaway locomotive, he determined on an investigation.

He descended to the near shore, lined it, and, sharply turning a snow-laden brush heap, almost stumbled on two persons on its other side. Ralph caught his breath and drew back just in time to escape discovery.

Peering cautiously, he made out a man seated on the ground. He was groaning with pain and rubbing one limb tenderly. In front of him was a boy.

“You see, I sprained my foot crossing a broken culvert,” the man said.

“Yes, yes, I see,” responded his companion, and the voice thrilled Ralph, for he recognized the accents as those of a tried and true boy friend of old-Zeph Dallas.

CHAPTER XVII – A STRANGE MESSAGE

Ralph had known the time when a good many of the boys and railroad men at the Junction had considered Zeph Dallas a joke. He himself, however, had tried to take Zeph as seriously as he could, and now his erratic young friend rose still higher in his estimation.

In every live town there are generally one or more lads with the detective fever. Zeph had wandered to Stanley Junction all on fire with it. He had liked railroading, but he disdained its humdrum phases. Step by step he had kept on the trail of “detecting something,” until he had unraveled a real mystery, had been of signal aid to the road detective of the Great Northern, and had practically become a hired and loyal helper to that experienced officer.

Ralph recalled the flying visit of Zeph to his mother at Stanley Junction less than ten days previous. On that occasion Zeph had dropped some mysterious and significant hints to Mrs. Fairbanks that he was “working on a big case.” He had even asked her to warn Ralph “to look out for dispatching trouble.”

There was no doubt in the mind of Ralph that Zeph was on the present spot on duty pure and simple. Inside of a very few minutes he was aware of the real situation of affairs. The crippled man in whose company he had found Zeph was the man who had operated the runaway engine. As Ralph peered closer he believed him to be one of the men with whom he had seen the grandfather of Glen Palmer, and whom he had later encountered in the railroad tunnel the night of the burglary of the paymaster’s house.

Ralph listened attentively as the man seated on the ground began to dolefully recite a lying story of how he had got hurt. How much of this Zeph took in Ralph could not guess, for Zeph was playing a part. The man pretended to be a member of a construction gang, with friends at a little settlement a few miles distant. Acting to perfection a simple country bumpkin, Zeph pulled the wool completely over the eyes of the fellow.

“You’ve helped me this far,” the man said, “and that makeshift crutch is a big help, but I don’t think I can navigate ahead alone.”

“That’s all right,” declared Zeph ingenuously. “If it isn’t too far, I’ll stay with you till you reach your friends, mister.”

“Say, you’re mighty obliging. I’ll make it worth your while, too. I’ll pay you well.”

“Oh, I don’t care so much for that,” said Zeph. “What I’d like to do is to get settled down to some steady job.”

“H’m,” murmured the man reflectively, looking Zeph over in a speculative way, “I don’t know but I might steer you right up against a good thing.”

“I’m willing, I tell you,” declared Zeph, with a rural drawl that caused Ralph to smile. “What doing, mister?”

“Just hanging around with a pleasant crowd and running some errands once in a while. There’s jumps in the business pretty lively, but no real work.”

“Why, I thought you was with a construction gang?”

“Um,” observed the man in an embarrassed way-“yes, yes, just so. Changing my job, that’s it. On my way to join certain friends on a new deal when that confounded locomotive went too fast for me, and-”

“Eh,” projected Zeph. “You didn’t say anything about a locomotive before, mister.”

“Say, you’re pretty keen, you are,” chuckled the man. “And I guess you’ll do. I was going to say till a locomotive loosened a log across a culvert and I stumbled over it.”

“Oh, that explains it,” said Zeph with a frank relief that was most fetching. “All right. You get me a job with your friends and you’ll find me a good worker.”

“Don’t doubt it. Let’s make a start.”

The man winced and groaned as Zeph helped him to his feet. The latter had rigged up a forked stick so that it answered for a crutch on one side. Zeph got on the other side of the man who, leaning on his shoulder with his hand, was able to hobble along.

Ralph could foresee no particular purpose gained in keeping on the trail. He felt certain that Zeph knew his business. He had probably been watching or waiting for the conspirators right in this locality.

“It looks that way,” murmured Ralph. “Anyhow, Zeph must be keeping Bob Adair advised; is perhaps acting under his direct orders. Now he is figuring for a chance to get right in with the gang. I’ll follow a little further, though, as it doesn’t take me much out of my course to Preston.”

After a bit of progress the train wrecker and Zeph halted again. The former was getting pretty tired. Zeph cleared away some snow from a heap of old ties. The man removed his overcoat and made a pillow of it. He rested for nearly half an hour. Then he resumed his coat and they trudged along.

“Hello,” exclaimed Ralph-“and good!”

He spoke the words with animation, as following up the pursuit he came to the heap of ties where the train wrecker had rested. A memorandum book lay on the snow where it had fallen from the pocket of the man’s overcoat. The night light was not sufficiently strong to enable Ralph to inspect its contents. He observed, however, that it contained letters and other documents.

“I fancy it will tell something interesting when I have time to look it over,” decided the young railroader.

The train wrecker and his escort finally arrived at a stretch of single rails and here they paused. This was a cut off from the main track with which Ralph was not familiar. He had an idea, however, that it connected with some coal pit or quarry in the neighborhood of Preston. In less than ten minutes after their arrival at this spot Ralph heard a rattle on the rails. A handcar propelled by two men came into view. There was quite a lengthy talk. They seemed discussing about Zeph, for Ralph saw the latter retire to a little distance. Then he was beckoned back to the three men. The crippled one was helped aboard of the handcar, Zeph joined them, and the handcar sped away.

Ralph realized that it was futile to think of following and keeping close track of them. Zeph was in their midst, accepted as a new recruit, and the young railroader felt sanguine that he would accomplish some practical results. Ralph proceeded on his way to Preston. It must have been three o’clock in the morning when he found himself not on the north branch of the road, but on a spur considerably to the east.

The light of a little station showed, and Ralph was glad to think of rest and warmth. He reached a short platform and noticed the station agent seated between the two signal windows on duty.

The man greeted the intruder with chary suspiciousness as Ralph entered the waiting room, kicking the snow off his feet. When Ralph had introduced himself, however, he stirred himself amiably, roused up the fire in the old stove, and placed a chair for him.

“I’ve had a bad two hours,” explained the man, “and was ready for train wreckers, smash ups, or what not. A tramp routed me out of bed at home telling me the old instrument here was raising mischief. Knew something about telegraphing himself, he said, and scented trouble. I’ve been lively up to a few minutes ago, getting all kinds of mixed instructions about wild locomotives and trouble generally on the north cut off.”

“I can tell you something about that,” said Ralph, and explained a good deal that interested his companion. “Can you get me Preston?”

“Sure-want to wire?”

“It will save me a long pull through the snow.”

The operator led Ralph into his little office. As he did so Ralph noticed that a piece of bagging was tacked over one of the upper sashes and the floor covered with splintered glass. He had already observed that the operator wore a bandage over one eye, but he did not just then connect affairs in his urgency to get in communication with Preston.

This he soon did. He found the operator there aware of conditions. The crude message Ralph had sent astride the telegraph pole formed the basis for advising headquarters of what was going on. The Limited was safely on her way, and a special from the Junction was now starting to take No. 93 in tow and investigate the wreck.

Ralph sent a message to Glidden, more explicitly explaining affairs. He announced that he would return to the Junction on the first train he could catch.

He was pretty well satisfied with his work of the night, for he had done his level best and he felt sure there would be some further outcome when Bob Adair’s assistant reported.

“You seem to have had some trouble here,” observed Ralph, with a glance at the shattered window as he left the instrument.

“Yes, and this too,” said the operator, indicating his bandaged eye. “Nearly blinded.”

“How is that?” inquired Ralph.

“The west freight, about an hour ago. She passes on her usual whiz. About the middle of the train some one let fly a board-a box cover. It slashed through the window, took me in the face and keeled me clear over.”

“That is strange,” commented Ralph. “Are you sure it was thrown?”

“What could it blow off from?”

“That’s so.”

“There’s the identical timber,” continued the operator, touching with his foot a piece of wood as they came out to the stove again. “I used half of it to mend the fire.”

Ralph picked up the piece of wood out of curiosity. As he did so he made a discovery.

Its smooth side, though blurred, bore some faint black marks like letters and words. It looked as if scratched with a blunt cinder on the ends of burned matches.

In breaking the wood to mend the fire the operator had split the piece transversely removing a part of a written line, but to his amazement Ralph could make out these words:

“Send word to Ralph Fairbanks, Stanley Junction, that Glen Palmer is-”

The remainder of this queer message was missing-ashes in the depot stove. What had been the writing complete, and what did it mean?

CHAPTER XVIII – THE SLUMP “SECRET”

“Wake up, Ralph.”

The young dispatcher of Stanley Junction jumped out of bed in a bound. He felt that he could have slept half a dozen hours longer, but to every railroad man the call “wake up” means duty waits, no delay, and Ralph responded to the urgent call without hesitation.

The echo of a series of light tappings on the door and of his mother’s voice mingled with her departing footsteps. He called out:

“What is it, mother?”

“A telephone message from the superintendent.”

“Good-something is stirring,” reflected Ralph, and hurried his dressing. “Well, enough has happened since yesterday to interest the president of the road himself,” he went on, musing. “They wanted some house cleaning done, and it has begun in a vigorous way.”

It was early in the afternoon. Just after daybreak that morning Ralph had reached Stanley Junction on top of a freight car. He had found Glidden in charge of the situation at the relay station.

“You’ve hit the mark, Fairbanks,” were his first commendatory words. “The assistant superintendent was here for an hour with me after we got that rough and tumble message from you down the line.”

“It was a cross tree experiment. Wasn’t it a jumble?” inquired Ralph.

“We pieced it out, got our bearings, and they’re spreading the net to catch some pretty big fish.”

“What of Grizzly and that fellow with him?”

“Sloped. Adair is after them, though. See here, you get right home and into your cozy.”

“But I have something of possible importance to tell the superintendent.”

“He’s gone down the line hot-footed. It will all keep till he calls you up. Left instructions to that effect-‘30,’ now, and be quick about it!”

“30” it was, perforce. Ralph had gone through a rough night of it. He was pretty well tired out and glad to get to bed. He went there, however, with some exciting thoughts in his mind.

There had been no solution to the enigma of the piece of broken box cover flung from the passing freight train through the window of the little station. All Ralph could do about that incident was to conjecture blindly.

It was a queer happening, a suggestive one. Ralph had a fertile imagination. There was a coincidence about the discovery of the queer message, and things hinged together in a way. Contiguous to that section the chicken farm was located, and Glen Palmer, at least his grandfather, had seemingly linked up with the conspirators against the welfare of the Great Northern road once or twice before. Ralph could not conceive why that message had been written. It was a new mystery, but it had come so secretly upon the heels of a bigger and more important one, that there was neither time nor opportunity to explore it just at present.

Mrs. Fairbanks, like the true anxious mother that she was, greeted Ralph on his arrival at home. She had not gone to bed all night, and she now insisted on his eating an early breakfast and taking a needed rest. Tired out as he was, however, once alone in his own room Ralph took this, the first quiet opportunity, to look over the memorandum book that had fallen from the coat pocket of the train wrecker.

Ralph’s eyes expanded and he uttered one or two subdued whistles of astonishment as he delved among the contents of his find. Some penciled notes and a letter in the memorandum book told a great deal-in fact, so much and so clearly and unmistakably, that Ralph could hardly go to sleep thinking over the importance of his discoveries.

They had to wait, however, till he could again see the superintendent. Now, as Ralph was roused up out of sleep by a telephone call from that very official, his active mind was again filled with the theme of the memorandum book and what it had revealed to him.

When he got down stairs Ralph found that word had come for him to report to the office of the road as promptly as possible. His mother had an appetizing lunch spread on the dining room table, and the lad did full justice to it.

He was thoughtful and busy formulating in his mind just what he would report at headquarters, and had proceeded less than half a dozen squares from home when passing an alley his name was called. Looking beyond the street Ralph recognized Ike Slump. He wore a very mysterious face and he was urgently beckoning to Ralph. The latter was about to proceed on his way with a gesture of annoyance, when Slump shouted out:

“You’ll be sorry if you don’t see me for a minute or two.”

“Well, what is it?” inquired Ralph, moving a few feet towards his challenger.

“I need five dollars.”

“Oh, you do?”

“Yes, bad. I want you to give it to me.”

“That’s cool.”

“I’ve got to get out of town. You’d better let me go.”

“I don’t see how I am preventing you,” said Ralph.

“You will, when I explain.”

“Then be quick about it. I have no time to waste.”

“Neither have I,” remarked Slump, with an uneasy glance towards the street. “To be short and sweet, I know Glen Palmer.”

Ralph started a trifle at this. Slump spoke the name with a knowing look in his eyes and a sidelong leer that was sinister.

“Well, what of it?” demanded Ralph.

“I thought I’d seen him before the day I met him up at the yards. I racked my brain to recall him. This morning it all came to me.”

“What do you suppose I care about your knowing him?” inquired Ralph.

“Just this: he’s a friend of yours, a sort of pet. I understand you started him in the chicken farming business, so you must have some interest in him. All right, I can snip him out of his position of glory double quick,” asserted Ike, in a malevolent and threatening way.

“Go ahead, what are you driving at?” asked Ralph as calmly as he could.

“Five dollars-that’s what it will cost you to keep your friend from being exposed. Five dollars, and I bury the secret fathoms deep.”

“In other words,” said Ralph, trying hard to suppress his feelings, “you want to blackmail me?”

“Oh, no,” assented Slump, “I simply want to sell this photograph,” and he drew a card from his pocket. “I went to heaps of trouble to get it. It shows that I did see Glen Palmer before. It was where we were both locked up in jail,” shamelessly confessed Slump.

Ralph was a good deal taken aback. The words of Slump and the photograph he extended rather took the young railroader’s breath away. The portrait was that of a boy dressed in a convict suit, a number on his cap, and the background showed the surroundings of a prison room.

“It’s too bad,” spoke Ralph involuntarily. He was thinking of his misplaced trust in the Palmer boy. All his dark suspicions concerning the old grandfather and the conspirators were instantly revived in the mind of Ralph.

“Ain’t it, though?” smirked Slump. “Is it worth the price?”

“No!” suddenly shouted Ralph, in a tone so stern and ringing that the discomfited Slump fell back several feet. “You miserable jail bird and swindler, I wouldn’t help you on your wretched career of crime for five cents let alone five dollars. Furthermore, Glen Palmer may have been in jail, but I won’t believe he belonged there till I have the proofs.”

“Oh, won’t you?” sneered Ike. “All right. Don’t want to reform him, eh? Won’t give the downtrodden and oppressed a chance. You’re a heavy philanthropist, you are, Mr. Ralph-let go!”

Slump took a sudden whirl. From behind a fence there suddenly pounced down upon him a towering form. Ralph was as much surprised as Slump to recognize Bob Adair, the road detective.

The diligent officer gave Slump one or two more whirls, holding on to his coat collar, that made him shriek with affright. Then he threw him reeling ten feet away.

“I gave you two hours to get out of town this morning,” he observed. “Now then it’s two minutes to head straight for the limits, or I’ll lock you up as a vagrant.”

Ike picked up his fallen cap on the run. He darted down the alley in a flash.

“I don’t know but what I would have liked to find out something more from him,” remarked Ralph.

“Oh, I overheard the subject of your conversation,” said Adair-“about that missing boy, Glen Palmer, I suppose you mean?”

“Missing-is he missing, Mr. Adair?”

“Since the day after you told me about him, and his grandfather and the queer company he kept,” replied Adair. “I went down to the chicken farm to find that young Palmer had sold it out to a neighbor for a song and had vanished.”

“Why, that is queer,” commented Ralph. “I fancied he had got a new lease of life when I started him in business.”

“Decidedly mysterious, the whole affair,” added the road detective. “That will all come out when we see the superintendent. We’re both due at his office.”

“I was just going there,” said Ralph.

“And I was on my way to meet you,” explained Adair.

They walked on together for a short distance. Suddenly Adair drew out a bulky pocket book well stuffed with papers. He selected a folded yellow sheet.

“Here’s something that belongs to you,” he said. “There’s a good deal to go over, so get that off our minds. Glidden handed it to me this noon.”

“What is it?” asked Ralph.

“A telegram.”

“So it is. Why-”

Ralph paused there. If he had been astonished at the discovery of the board message back at the little station, the present scrap of paper doubly mystified him.

It was the mere fragment of a telegram, no heading, no date, and it read:

“Advise Ralph Fairbanks, Stanley Junction. Look out for the pacer.”