Ralph on the Engine: or, The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail

It took some time to get righted again, and the train proceeded very slowly. Ralph had done a good deal of thinking. He knew that soon the robbers would reach some spot where they would attack the pay car.

“I must defeat their purpose,” he said to himself. “I can’t let myself out, but – the safe! A good idea.”

Ralph settled upon a plan of action. He was busily engaged during the next half hour. When the train came to a final stop, there was an active scene about it.

Half-a-dozen men, securing tools from the locomotive, started to break in the door of the pay car. In this they soon succeeded.

They went inside. The safe was the object of all their plotting and planning, but the safe was gone, and Ralph Fairbanks was nowhere in the pay car.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE STRIKE LEADER

Ralph felt that he had done a decidedly timely and clever act in outwitting the train robbers. He had left the car almost as it stopped, and under the cover of the dark night had gained the shelter of the timber lining the track.

The young fireman waited until the men came rushing out of the car. They were dismayed and furious, and, leaving them in a noisy and excited consultation, Ralph started back towards the trestle work.

“They won’t get the safe, that is sure,” said the young railroader in tones of great satisfaction, as he hurried along in the pelting storm. “They will scarcely pursue me. It is pretty certain, however, that they will be pursued, and I may meet an engine before I reach Dover.”

Just as he neared the end of the trestle Ralph saw at some distance the glint of a headlight. It was unsteady, indicating the uncertain character of the roadbed.

“About two miles away,” decided the young fireman. “I must manage to stop them.”

With considerable difficulty, Ralph secured sufficient dry wood and leaves in among some bushes to start a fire between the rails and soon had a brisk blaze going. The headlight came nearer and nearer. A locomotive halted. Ralph ran up to the cab.

It contained Griscom, the city fireman and two men armed with rifles. The old engineer peered keenly at the figure, quickly springing to the step of the engine.

“You, lad?” he cried heartily. “I’m glad of that. Where is the train?”

“About two miles further on beyond the trestle.”

“And the pay car?”

“The robbers were in possession when I left them.”

“Then they will get away with the safe!” cried the engineer excitedly.

“Hardly,” observed Ralph, with a smile.

“Eh, lad, what do you mean?”

“What I say. Truth is, I saw what was coming. There was only one thing to do. There were tools in the car. I sawed a hole through the floor of the car, rolled the safe to it, and dumped it through. It went between two rotten ties, and lies in the swamp – safe.”

With a shout of delight old John Griscom slapped his young assistant admiringly on the shoulder.

“Fairbanks,” he cried, “you’re a jewel! Mate,” to the fireman, “this is glad news.”

“It is, indeed,” said his companion. “I wouldn’t like the record of losing that safe. Can you locate the spot, Fairbanks?”

“It may take some trouble,” answered Ralph. “The best thing to do is to get a wrecking car here; meantime, the trestle should be guarded.”

They ran on and up to the spot where the stolen train was halted, but found the vicinity deserted. It seemed that whatever the robbers had guessed out as to the mystery of the safe, they did not consider there was any chance of recovering it.

The two men armed with rifles remained at the trestle, while the others took the stolen pay car back to Dover. Once there, Griscom kept the wires busy for a time. About daylight a wrecking crew was made up. Ralph accompanied them to the scene of the attempted robbery.

He could fairly estimate the locality of the sunken safe, and some abrasions of the ties finally indicated the exact spot where the safe had gone through into the water below. It was grappled for, found, and before noon that day the pay car train arrived at Stanley Junction with the safe aboard.

Affairs at the terminal town were still in an unsettled condition. The presence of armed guards prevented wholesale attacks on the railroad property, but there were many assaults on workmen at lonely spots, switches tampered with and shanty windows broken in.

Ralph reported to Tim Forgan and then went home. He went to sleep at once, awoke refreshed about the middle of the afternoon, and then told his mother all the occurrences of that day and the preceding one.

While Mrs. Fairbanks was pleased at the confidence reposed in her son by the railroad authorities, she was considerably worried at the constant turmoil and dangers of the present railroad situation. Ralph, however, assured her that he would take care of himself, and left the house trying to form some plan to follow out the instructions of the president of the Great Northern.

He could not go among the strikers, and without doing so, or sending a spy among them, it would be difficult to ascertain their motives and projects. Coming around a street corner, the young fireman halted abruptly.

A procession of strikers was coming down the street. They were a noisy, turbulent mob, cheered on by like rowdyish sympathizers lining the pavements.

“Why, impossible!” exclaimed Ralph, as he noticed by the side of Jim Evans, the leader of the crowd, his young friend, Zeph Dallas.

The latter seemed to share the excitement of the paraders. He acted as if he gloried in being a striker, and the familiar way Evans treated him indicated that the latter regarded him as a genuine, first-class recruit.

Zeph caught Ralph’s eye and then looked quickly away. The young fireman was dreadfully disappointed in the farmer boy. He went at once to the roundhouse, where the foreman told him that Zeph had deserted the afternoon previous.

“I don’t understand it,” said Forgan. “The lad seemed to hate the strikers for attacking him the other night. I suppose, though, it’s with him like a good many others – there’s lots of ‘relief money’ being given out, and that’s the bait that catches them.”

“I must manage to see Zeph,” mused Ralph. “I declare, I can hardly believe he is really on their side. I wonder how near I dare venture to the headquarters of that mob.”

The young fireman went to the vicinity of the hall occupied by the strikers, but he did not meet Zeph. Then Ralph proceeded to the business portion of Stanley Junction. He visited the bank and several other leading local business institutions. He made a great many inquiries and he felt that he was on the edge of some important discoveries.

When he got home he found Zeph sitting on the porch, smiling as ever. Ralph nodded seriously to him. Zeph grinned outright.

“What’s that kind of a welcome for, eh?” he demanded.

“Sorry to see you in the ranks of the strikers to-day, Zeph,” observed Ralph.

“Ought to be glad.”

“What?”

“I suppose a fellow is free to follow out his convictions, isn’t he?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, I’m following out mine,” declared Zeph – “the conviction that of all the mean rascals in this burg, Jim Evans is the meanest. See here, Fairbanks, have you lost your wits? Do you really for one minute suppose I sympathize with those fellows?”

“You seemed pretty close to Evans.”

“Grand!” chuckled Zeph. “That’s just what I was working for. See here, I made up my mind that those fellows were up to more mischief than what they have already done. I concluded there was something under the surface of this pretended strike. I wanted to find out. I have.”

Ralph looked very much interested now. He began to see the light.

“Go on, Zeph,” he said.

“Well, I found out just what I suspected – some one is furnishing the strikers with money, and lots of it.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“I don’t, but I do know one thing: every day Evans goes to the office of a certain lawyer in town here. They have a long consultation. Evans always comes away very much satisfied and with more money.”

“What’s the lawyer’s name, Zeph?” inquired Ralph.

“Bartlett.”

Just then they were called in to supper by Mrs. Fairbanks. Ralph was silent and thoughtful during most of the meal.

The young fireman had learned that afternoon that a stranger named Bartlett had been buying up all the stock of the railroad he could secure. The man was not in good repute at Stanley Junction. He had come there only the week previous, Ralph was told, and occupied a mean little room in the main office building of the town.

After supper Ralph strolled down town. He entered the building in question and ascended its stairs. He knew the occupants of most of the offices, and finally located a room which contained a light but had no sign on the door.

Footsteps ascending the stairs caused the young fireman to draw back into the shadow. A man came into view and knocked noisily at the closed door.

“Here I am, Bartlett,” said the fellow, lurching about in an unsteady way.

“I see you are,” responded the man inside the room, “primed for work, too, it seems to me.”

Ralph could not repress some excitement. The man Bartlett he instantly recognized as the person who had delivered to him in the city the papers from Gasper Farrington. His visitor he knew to be a discharged telegraph operator of the Great Northern.

“Yes,” said the latter, as the door closed on him, “I’m ready for work, so bring on your wire-tapping scheme soon as you like.”

CHAPTER XIX

THE WIRE TAPPERS

When the door of the office that Ralph was watching closed again and was locked, the young fireman approached the room. He was very sure that some important move against the railroad was meditated by the two men he had just seen, and he was anxious to overhear their conversation if possible.

To his intense satisfaction Ralph found that a coal box rested under the clouded-glass window of the office looking into the hallway. This window was down from the top some inches. Ralph clambered up on the coal box, got to the side of the window, fixed his eye at a small space where the glass was broken, and prepared to listen to the words of the two men he had in view.

Both sat in chairs now. Bartlett looked brisk and pleased; the ex-telegraph operator was unkempt, rather sullen, and acted like a man under orders on some unpleasant duty.

“Well, Morris,” said the former, “all ready, are you? Tools and wire in that bag?”

“Batteries and all, complete outfit,” responded the other. “What’s the programme?”

“You haven’t mentioned about my employing you to any one?”

“Certainly not.”

“And have arranged to stay away from town for several days?”

“A week, if you like, at ten dollars a day you promised me,” answered Morris.

“Very good. Let me see. There’s a train about 10 o’clock.”

“There is, if the strikers will let it run out,” said Morris.

“Oh, they will. I have arranged all that,” chuckled Bartlett. “They’ll even help it on, knowing I’m aboard.”

“That so?” muttered Morris. “You must have a pull somewhere.”

“I have, or at least money has, and I control the money,” grinned Bartlett. “You are to come with me down the line about twenty miles. You’ll be told then about this special job.”

Bartlett got up and bustled about. He packed a great many papers in a satchel, and finally announced that they had better be starting for the depot.

“Any little by-play you see on the train,” said Bartlett, “help along, mind you.”

“Why, what do you mean?” inquired Morris.

“You’ll see when we get there,” replied Bartlett enigmatically.

When they reached the depot the two men got aboard the one passenger coach of the night accommodation. There was a combination express car ahead. Ralph went to the messenger in charge and arranged to have free access to do as he desired.

When the train started up, he opened the rear door of the car and commanded a clear view into the passenger coach. The men he was watching sat side by side, engaged in conversation. There were only a few passengers aboard.

Ralph kept his eye on the two men. He noticed that Bartlett consulted his watch frequently and glanced as often from the car window. Finally, when the brakeman was out on the rear platform and the conductor at the front of the coach, the young fireman saw Bartlett quickly draw a small screwdriver from his pocket. Hiding its handle in his palm and letting the blade run along one finger, he dropped his arm down the seat rail into the middle of the aisle.

Morris watched towards the rear platform, Bartlett kept his eye on the conductor. His hand worked against the floor of the car. Finally he drew up his arm, put the screwdriver in his pocket and once more resumed his watch on the outside landscape.

There was a sharp signal, and the train gave a jerk. Bartlett arose to his feet. The next instant he fell flat headlong, and lay apparently insensible on the floor of the coach.

The conductor ran outside. The train started up again. Ralph, from the open doorway, heard the engineer shout back something about a false signal, presumably the work of the strikers. The train proceeded on its way.

It was not until then, as he re-entered the coach, that the conductor became aware of the prostrate man on the floor and Morris and other passengers gathering around him in excitement and solicitude. Ralph ventured across the platform near to the door of the passenger coach.

Bartlett, seemingly unconscious, was lifted to a seat. He soon opened his eyes, but feigned intense pain in his side, and acted the injured man to perfection. He began to explain, pointing to the floor. The conductor investigated. Ralph saw him draw a long brass screw into sight.

“A clever game,” murmured the young fireman. “What a rascal the fellow is! He is laying the foundation for a damage suit.”

Morris made himself busy, taking the names of witnesses. When the train stopped, Bartlett had to be almost lifted from the coach. Ralph alighted, too, and kept in the shadow. As soon as the train left, Bartlett was able to walk about unassisted.

The little town they had arrived at was dark and silent, and the two men met no one as they proceeded down its principal street. Then they turned to the south and walked a distance of about a mile. There was a kind of a grove lining the railroad. At its center they reached a lonely hut.

“Open up, there!” shouted Bartlett, pounding on its door with a stick he had picked up.

A light soon showed through the cracks of the board shutters.

“Who is there?” demanded a voice from the inside.

“Bartlett.”

“All right – come in.”

“Gasper Farrington,” murmured Ralph, as he recognized the occupant of the hut.

It was the magnate of Stanley Junction, still disguised, just as he had been the last night Ralph had seen him at the home of Jim Evans. The three men disappeared within the house. Ralph approached and went cautiously about the place. He could not find a single point where he could look into the hut.

The young fireman felt that it was very important that he should learn what was going on within the house. He at length discovered a way of gaining access to at least one part of it. This was at the rear where a high stack of old hay stood. It almost touched the hut, and its top was very near to a sashless aperture in the attic.

Ralph scaled the stack with some difficulty and reached its top. In another moment he was inside the attic. It was low, the rafters were few and far between, and, as he crept over these, they began to sway and creak in an alarming way.

“This won’t do at all,” murmured the youth in some dismay, for it seemed that one more movement would carry down the entire ceiling below. He tried to retreat. There was a great cracking sound, and before he could help himself the young fireman went sprawling into the room below in the midst of a shower of plaster and laths.

“Hello!” shouted Bartlett, jumping up from a chair in consternation.

“I should say so,” exclaimed Morris, dodging about out of the way of falling bits of plaster from the ceiling.

“A spy!” cried Farrington, “a spy! Why, it’s Ralph Fairbanks!”

The young fireman stood surrounded by the three men, trying to clear his half-blinded eyes. He was seized and hustled about, thrown into a chair, and regained his wonted composure to find Gasper Farrington confronting him with an angry face.

“So, it’s you, is it – you, again?” spoke the latter, gazing at Ralph with a glance full of ill will.

“Yes,” responded the youth. “I can’t deny it very well, can I?”

“How do you come to be up in that attic? How long have you been there? What are you up to, anyway?” shouted the excited Farrington.

“Don’t ask me any questions for I shall not answer them,” retorted Ralph nervily. “Here I am. Make the best of it.”

“See here,” said Bartlett, a deep frown on his face. “This looks bad for us. Morris, watch that young fellow a minute or two.”

He and Farrington went into the next room. There was a low-toned consultation. When they came back the lawyer carried a piece of rope in his hand. It was useless for Ralph to resist, and the three men soon had him securely bound. He was carried into a small adjoining room, thrown on a rude mattress, and locked in.

For nearly half-an-hour he could hear the drone of low voices in the adjoining room. Then the door was unlocked, and Farrington came in with a light and made sure that the captive was securely bound.

“You are going to leave here, then?” asked Bartlett.

“Don’t I have to?” demanded Farrington. “This fellow has located us. I’ll take you and Morris to the place I told you about, and move my traps out of here early in the morning.”

“What are you going to do with Fairbanks?” inquired Bartlett.

“I’m thinking about that,” retorted Farrington in a grim way. “It’s the chance of a lifetime to settle with him. You leave that to me.”

The speakers, shortly after this, left the hut with Morris. Ralph found he could not release himself, and patiently awaited developments. His captors had left the light in the next room and the door open, and he could see on a table the satchel the lawyer had brought with him from his office.

The sight of it caused Ralph to make renewed efforts for freedom. He strained at his bonds strenuously. Finally a strand gave way.

It was just as he began to take hope that he might acquire his liberty before his captors returned, that a sudden disaster occurred that made the young fireman fear for his life.

Some more of the ceiling plastering fell. It struck the lamp on the table, upset it, and in an instant the room was ablaze.

CHAPTER XX

IN PERIL

The young fireman gave a great shout of distress and excitement as he realized that he was in a decidedly perilous predicament. The oil of the lamp had ignited and the hut seemed doomed.

Ralph tugged at his bonds in a frenzy. Another strand of the rope gave way, then another, and still another. He trembled with mingled surprise and hope. Could he get free in time? It seemed not, for the flames were spreading fast and furiously.

Suddenly there was a shout outside of the hut. It was repeated, and then there came a great crash at the door. Ralph wondered at this, for he could think only of Farrington and his accomplices returning to the rescue. The loud pounding on the door, however, indicated that the persons engaged in it had no key. There was more than one person; Ralph ascertained this from the sound of mingled voices.

Suddenly the door gave way. It was burst bodily from its hinges and went crashing against the blazing table, upsetting it. At just that moment Ralph got one arm free. He was about to shout for assistance when he recognized the intruders.

They were Ike Slump and Mort Bemis. Both dashed into the blazing room. One found a pail of water and threw it in among the flames. This subdued the blaze partially.

“Be quick!” cried Slump to his companion. “Grab all you can. You have been watching the place, and say you know where old Farrington is likely to hide his valuables.”

“Right here,” replied Bemis, tearing open the door of a cupboard. “Here’s a satchel.”

“And here’s another one,” said Ike Slump, picking up the one that Bartlett had brought to the place. “Look sharp, now. They may come back at any moment.”

The two marauders ransacked the room. Ralph refrained from calling out to them. He could now reach his pocket knife, and just as Slump and Bemis, pretty well singed by the flames, ran out of the hut, he hurried to a rear door and darted outside as well.

The young fireman peered around the corner of the hut. He saw Slump and Bemis making for the nearest timber. Ralph put after them, and as he gained the cover of the woods, looking back, he made out three figures dashing towards the blazing hut.

“Farrington and the others,” decided Ralph. “This is an exciting business. Now to keep track of Slump and Bemis. I can hardly figure out, though, how they came to rob the hut, for Farrington was once their friend.”

The precious pair of thieves scurried along through the woods, laughing and talking gleefully over the plunder they had secured. They must have gone over three miles before they halted. It was at a spot in among high bushes. Here they had evidently been camping previously, for there was a lot of hay on the ground, the signs of a recent campfire, and a sort of roof of bark overhead for shelter from rain and dew. They sat down on the ground and Slump proceeded to light a lantern.

“Your watching has amounted to something at last, Mort,” said Slump. “Farrington went back on us in a measly way. Why, after all we did for him he took up with Jim Evans and others, and even refused me a few dollars when we were in hiding and trouble after that silk robbery. Here’s our revenge. He’s been up to some deep game for a week. He’ll never know who stole this plunder.”

“Find how much of it there is,” suggested Bemis.

Each took up a satchel to investigate the contents. Ralph was intensely interested. He peered from a safe covert near at hand.

“Well, well, well!” exclaimed Slump as he opened the satchel taken from the cupboard of the old hut. “Why, there’s a fortune here, if we can only handle it. Bonds of the Great Northern, stock in the Great Northern. See? some money – notes, mortgages, deeds! This is a big find.”

“Same here, except the money,” reported Bemis, investigating the documents in the satchel brought from Stanley Junction by Bartlett. “Mostly railroad stock in the Great Northern. Private letters, lists of names of the strikers. Memoranda about some wire-tapping scheme. Say, these papers are enough to send the old skeesicks to the penitentiary. He’ll pay a fortune to get them back.”

Slump pocketed the ready cash in the satchel. Then he was silently thoughtful for a few moments.

“See here, I have my scheme,” he said finally. “We’ll carry these satchels down to the old barge at the creek, and hide them there. Then we’ll block out some plan to work Farrington for their return.”

“All right,” said Bemis. “Come ahead.”

They took up the satchels and started on again, and Ralph followed them as before. They came to a creek, and, after lining its shore for nearly a mile, to a large roughly-made scow. Both boarded the craft, disappeared in its hold, reappeared, and came to the shore again.

“We’ll just enjoy the ready cash for the time being,” said Slump, “and later find out a safe way to deal with Farrington.”

When they had gone, Ralph went aboard the scow. A scuttle led down into its hold. Its cover was closed with a strong spring bolt. Ralph drew this back and sat over the edge of the scuttle.

He peered down, prepared to push the cover clear back, when he slipped and went below head-long. The cover fell tightly shut, and he was a prisoner.

Ralph did not mind this much at the time. He believed he could readily force up the cover in some way when he wanted to leave the scow. He lit some matches and proceeded to search for the two satchels. He found them in a remote corner of the hold.

It was when he prepared to leave the hold that the young fireman discovered himself in a decided quandary. He could barely reach the scuttle cover, and there was not an object in the hold that he could use to force it open. Finally Ralph decided that he could not hope for escape in that direction.