Ralph of the Roundhouse: or, Bound to Become a Railroad Man

The lame helper had disappeared. Ralph noticed that the place needed sweeping. He went to where the brooms stood, selected one, and started in at his voluntary task.

He felt he was doing something to improve the looks of things, and worked with a will. He had made the greasy boards look quite spick and smooth, and was whistling cheerily at his work, when a gruff growl caused him to look up.

The foreman, Tim Forgan, confronted him with a lowering, suspicious brow.

"Who told you to do that?" he demanded sharply.

"Why, nobody," answered Ralph. "I like to keep busy, that's all. No harm, I hope?"

"Yes, there is!" snapped Forgan. Ralph surprisedly wondered why this man seemed determined to be at odds with him. He had not fallen in with very cheerful or elevating company. Forgan continued to regard him with an evil eye.

"See here," he said roughly, "I'll have discipline here, and I'll be boss. I'll give you your duties, and if you step over the line, get out. This isn't a playroom, as you'll probably find out before you've been here long."

Ralph thought it best to maintain silence.

"You take that box and can yonder, and go to the supply and oil sheds and get some waste and grease. Slump will be here soon, take your orders from him for to-day."

Ralph bowed politely and understandingly.

"I'll tell you another thing," went on Forgan harshly. "Don't you get to knowing too much, or talking about it. I'll have no spying around my affairs."

Ralph was astonished. He tried to catch the keynote of the foreman's plaint. Suspicion seemed the incentive of his anger, and yet Ralph could trace no reason for it.

An open doorway led from one side of the roundhouse. Ralph picked up a heavy sheet-iron pail and a tin box with a handle. Just then the helper came into view.

"Where do I go for oil and waste?" asked Ralph.

The helper surlily pointed through the doorway. Ralph found himself in a bricked-in passage, slippery with oil, and leading to a narrow yard. On one side was a row of sheds, whose interior comprised bins for boxes filled with all kinds of metal fittings. On the other side were like sheds, full of cans, pails and barrels. From here some men were conveying barrow loads of pails and cans filled with oil and grease, and Ralph went to an open door.

Inside was a grimy, greasy fellow marking something on a card tacked to the wall. Ralph told him who he was, got both receptacles filled, and went back to the roundhouse.

He sat down on a bench and watched a fireman go through the finishing touches on his engine which put it "to sleep." The last whistle sounded, and in through the doorway came Ike Slump.

The latter was a wiry, elfish fellow, usually very volatile and active. On this especial morning, however, he looked ugly, depressed and wicked. He went over to his locker, threw in his dinner pail, put on a pair of overalls, and for the first time observed Ralph.

"Hello!" he ejaculated, taking a step backward, hunching his shoulders, showing his teeth, and lurching forward much with the pose of a prize fighter descending on an easy victim.

"Good-morning, Ike," said Ralph pleasantly.

Ike Slump indulged in a vicious snarl.

"Morning nothing!" he snapped. "What you doing here?"

"I'm going to work here."

"Who says so?"

"The foreman."

"When?"

"Yesterday, and ten minutes ago. In fact, I am waiting to begin under your directions, as he ordered."

"Oh, you are!" muttered Ike darkly, and in hissing long-drawn-out accents. "That's your lay, is it? Well, say, do you see those?"

Ike glanced keenly about him. Then advancing, he strutted up to Ralph, bunched one set of coarse, dirty knuckles, and rested them squarely on Ralph's nose.

Ralph did not budge for a second or two. When he did, it was with infinite unconcern and the remark:

"Yes, I see them, and a little soap and water wouldn't hurt them any."

"Say! do you want to insult me? say! are you spoiling for a fight? say-"

"Keep a little farther away, please," suggested Ralph, putting out one of those superbly-rounded, magnificently-formed arms of his, which sent the bullying Ike back, stiff and helpless as if he was at the end of an iron rod.

"Say-" Ike began on his war dance again. "This is too much!" Then he subsided as he noticed the foreman cross the roundhouse. "No chance now, but to-night, after work, we'll settle this!"

"Just as you like, Ike," assented Ralph accommodatingly-"only, drop it long enough just now to start me in at my duties, or we'll both have Mr. Forgan in our hair."

Ike unclinched his fists, but he continued to growl and grumble to himself.

"A nice sneak you are!" Ralph made out. "Thought you'd be smart! Gave away my tip, didn't you?"

"See here, Ike, what do you mean?"

"I mean I told you I was going to leave, and you promised to hang around and come on deck when I'd had my pay."

"The way things turned out," said Ralph, "there was no occasion for that."

"You bet there wasn't! You just sneaked the word to Forgan double-quick, he told the old man, and I got a walloping, locked up on bread and water yesterday, and all my plans scattered about leaving. You bet I'll cut the job just the same, though!" declared Ike, with a vicious snap of his jaws. "Only, you gave me away, and I'm going to pay you off for it."

"Ike, you are very much mistaken."

"Yah!"

"I never mentioned what you told me to any one."

"Cut it out! We'll settle that to-night. Now you get to work."

Ralph at last understood the situation, but he saw the futility of attempting to convince his obstinate companion of his error.

Besides, the foreman in the distance was watching him from the corner of one eye, and Ike thought it best to apply himself to business.

"You just watch me for an hour or two," he bolted out grudgingly.

Ralph did not spend a happy forenoon. Ike was sullen, grumpy and savage.

He made his helper hold the grease pail when it was unnecessary, till Ralph's arms were stiff, dropping splotches of oil on his shoes. He let the exhaust deluge him, as if by accident, and refused to engage in any general conversation, nursing his wrath the meantime.

He knew how to clean up an engine, although, Ralph divined, in the most slipshod and easiest way that would pass inspection. Ralph was learning something, however, and was patient under the slights Ike put upon him from time to time.

About eleven o'clock there was a lull in active work.

Mr. Ike Slump lounged on the bench, indulging in a smoke and trying to look important and dangerous, both at once. Then, as if casually, he began kneading a fat, juicy ball of waste and grease, poked it under the bench, and said to Ralph:

"There's two switch engines coming in. You can take one of them, and see if you know how to handle it."

"I'll try," announced Ralph.

"When you come to the bell, give her a good, hard rubbing. They'll give you some sand at the supply shed."

"Sand?" repeated Ralph vaguely.

"Sure. Dump it in with the grease in the little pail, and don't fail to slap it on thick and plenty."

Ralph said nothing. He started for the passageway with more thoughts than one in his mind. As he shot a quick glance back of him, he observed Ike leap from the bench, poke out the grease ball, palm it, and disappear from his range of vision.

Ralph went to the supply shed and got a can full of sand. Then he started back the way he had come.

As he did so, he observed the foreman turn into the passage in front of him.

Ralph was due to pass by him, for the foreman was pursuing his way at a leisurely gait, but Ralph did nothing of the sort.

He guessed considerable and anticipated more from the recent suspicious movements of his temporary master, and smiled slightly, allowing the foreman to precede him.

As Tim Forgan stepped through the doorway leading into the roundhouse, that happened which Ralph Fairbanks had foreseen.

His enemy, lying in wait there to "christen" his new work suit as he had threatened, let drive, never doubting but that the approaching footsteps were those of Ralph.

With a dripping swush the ball of waste and grease cut through the air and took the roundhouse foreman squarely in the face.

CHAPTER XII-IKE SLUMP'S REVENGE

The roundhouse foreman staggered back with a gasp.

The oil splattered over his face, neck and chest, the waste separated and dropped down inside his vest.

Then, astonished, Forgan dashed the blinding grease from his eyes, ran forward, took a stare in every direction, and doubled his pace with a roar like a maddened bull.

"You imp of Satan!" he yelled.

He had detected Ike Slump, unmistakably the culprit. With agile springs, fairly terrified at his mistake, Ike had taken to flight.

In his haste he tripped over a rail. His pursuer pounced down on him before he could get up, snatched him up with one hand by the collar, grabbed half a loose box cover with another, dragged him into the little office, banged the door shut with his foot, and the work of retribution began.

The men in the dog house had been attracted by the turmoil. Now they stood gazing at the closed office door.

A grin ran the rounds, as from within escaped sounds unmistakably connected with the box cover, mingled with the frantic yells of Ike Slump.

"That kid's been spoiling for just this for some time," observed a gray-bearded engineer.

"Has he?" echoed an extra-"well, just! He's been the bane of Forgan's life ever since he came here. The boss had to keep him because Ike's father is a crony, but he's getting real enjoyment for the privilege!"

There was nothing malicious in Ralph's nature, but he felt that Ike Slump deserved a lesson. Ralph proceeded calmly on his way as though nothing had happened, carried his can of sand over to the bench, mixed it well in one of the small oil pails, took up the other and some waste, and went over to one of the two switch engines that had just come in.

They stood on adjacent tracks, not yet run to stall. Ralph began his first task as a real wiper. He had watched Ike carefully, and it was no trick at all to follow in his mechanical groove, and much improve his system, besides.

Ralph was busy on the bell as the door of foreman's office was thrust open.

Ike Slump was as quickly thrust out. He was blubbering, limp, and smarting with pain.

Forgan was red-faced and panting from his exertions.

"Now then," he said, "you get to work, or get out and home to your father, just as you like."

"He'll kill me if I do!" came from Ike.

"He ought to. Hustle there, now!"

Ike went to the bench, picked up the grease pail, and climbed to the cabin of the other switch engine.

He cast an angry glance at Ralph.

"Played it smart, didn't you!" he snarled.

"You shouldn't complain," answered Ralph calmly.

"Wait till to-night!"

"I'm waiting," tranquilly rejoined Ralph, poising back to view about as fine a shimmer to the bell he was working on as oil and waste and elbow grease could produce.

Meantime, Ike had blindly, savagely slapped a coat of grease on the bell opposite.

A yell went up from his wrathful lips as he applied the waste.

He nearly had a fit and if he could have found a loose missile he would doubtless have thrown it at Ralph.

"Confound you!" he hissed. "Oh, I'll get you yet!"

"I'm here," said Ralph. "What's up. You said sand was good for the bell. Is it?"

"Say, you wait! oh, say, you wait!" foamed Ike.

Both worked their way simultaneously into the cabs, the upper wiping done. Ralph watched his fellow-worker. The locomotives had been dumped, but there was still enough steam to run them to bed.

"Soon as I run her in," announced Ike malevolently across the two-foot space between the engines, "I'm going to jump my job."

Ralph said nothing. Ike had put his hand on the lever, intending evidently to slow back the locomotive to its stall. Ralph was expected to do the same with the other engine.

"But I'll be laying for you at quitting time, and with the bunch, don't you forget it!" supplemented Ike.

Ralph gave the lever a touch, the wheels started, but instantly he shut off steam.

Glancing sideways and out through the open front of the roundhouse, his eyes met a sight that would have paralyzed some people, but which acted on his impetuous nature like a shock of electricity.

With one leap he cleared the cab, in two springs he had reached the doorway. The startled Ike Slump saw him disappear behind the locomotive. His bead-like eyes glowed.

Now was his chance. Leaning over between the two locomotives, he touched the lever Ralph had just shut off. The locomotive started towards its stall.

Directing his own forward, it went on its diverging course at routine slow speed.

This cleared the view from doghouse and office. At that moment the foreman's strident tones belched out:

"Stop her! Where's the wiper?"

All eyes saw that the second locomotive was not manned. Some had witnessed Ralph's sensational disappearance.

Three or four made a run for the unguided locomotive. The foremost of the group sprang into the cab just as the tender struck the circular outer wall of the roundhouse.

He halted the engine, but not until the tender had smashed a hole out to daylight, taking one big window upon its back, and buried the rails under half a ton of brick and mortar.

Ike Slump descended from his locomotive serene as summer skies, as Forgan rushed up to the scene.

"Where's the smart-Aleck that did that!" roared the foreman.

He was fairly distracted with the accumulating disturbances of the hour.

"Dunno. Got scared at hearing the steam hiss, I guess, and run for it," said Ike.

Tim Forgan paced up and down the planks, a smoldering volcano of wrath.

"There he is now," piped Ike, hugging himself with delight, as he considered that he had turned the tables on Ralph.

The foreman dashed towards the entrance of the roundhouse. Sure enough, Ralph had come into view.

Half a dozen persons were straggling after him, and some unusual commotion was evidently rife among them, but the infuriated roundhouse foreman at the moment had eyes only for the object of his rage.

Ralph's face was as white as chalk, he was out of breath, one arm of his jacket was torn away, and from the elbow to the finger tips there was a long, bleeding scratch.

The foreman ran up to him, and almost jerked him off his feet as he caught him by the arm.

"You young blunderer!" he roared-"look at your work! Five hundred dollars damage!"

Ralph seemed in an uncomprehending daze and failed to take in the wrathful sweep of Forgan's arm towards the dismantled wall.

"I'll give you the same dose I gave that young imp, Slump!" shouted Forgan, losing all control of himself.

He began to drag Ralph towards the office. The latter had acted as if about to faint! Now his senses seemed to arouse abruptly.

Ralph braced back. His eyes swept the crowd about him. He caught sight of Ike Slump's gloating face, and beyond him the wrecked wall.

"Wait!" he said faintly, and then with more firmness of tone: "Stop! what do you accuse me of?"

"Accuse you of?" roared the foreman. "Hear him! I suppose you pretend not to see your work. Look at that wall, look at that engine-"

"I didn't do it," declared Ralph positively, catching on for the first time.

"Oh, I won't listen to such rot!" fumed Forgan. "You get out good and quick, but I'll give you something to remember it by before you do."

"Stop!" again spoke Ralph, and this time it was a command. "You are accusing me of something I know nothing about, Mr. Forgan. Let go my arm."

"Why, you impudent young jackanapes! I'll lick the daylight out of you now, just to drive some truth into you!"

"Don't you dare to touch me!" cried Ralph. He was fully aroused now. The natural glitter had returned to his eye, and with a quick move he jerked free from the grasp of the foreman, powerful as it was. "I allow no man to punish me for what I did not do, and this is a place where we stand as man to man."

The foreman had been surprised at Ralph's exhibition of genuine strength, but that manifestation had only served to increase his rage.

In positive fury he posed for a savage spring at Ralph. The latter put both hands on the defensive. His lips were firmly compressed. He did not wish to imperil his position by fighting with a superior, but he was determined to stand on his rights.

At that moment, in advance of the pressing crowd outside, big Denny Sloan, the yard watchman, came into view.

"Drop that, Tim Forgan!" he ordered quickly. "Don't touch that boy, or you'll be sorry for it to your dying day!"

CHAPTER XIII-MAKING HIS WAY

Big Denny confronted the roundhouse foreman, an obstructing block in his path. He was one of the heaviest men in the service, built like an ox, and immensely good-natured.

Just now, however, he was also immensely excited and serious, and the crowd stared at him curiously, and at Forgan in an astonished way.

"This is none of your business. Don't you interfere, don't you try to shield that miserable blunderer!" shouted the foreman.

"Hold on, Tim," advised the watchman, putting out his big arm, and abruptly checking Forgan in a forward dash.

"Do you know what he's done!" howled Forgan.

"Do you?"

"Do I-"

"I guess you don't, Tim," said Big Denny quietly. "Just you cool down. This way, boys," called the watchman into the crowd at his heels. "Keep cool, Tim-there's no harm done, but there might have been if Fairbanks here wasn't quicker than lightning, and a brave young hero, besides!"

The crowd parted, a switchman came into view. He carried in his arms, white and limp, a little girl about ten years of age.

Hanging by the neck ribbon was her pretty summer hat, crushed and cut squarely in two. One temple was somewhat disfigured, and her dress was soiled with roadbed dust and grime.

Tim Forgan looked once and his jaws dropped. He shuddered as if some one had dealt him a blow, and staggered where he stood, his face turning to a sickly gray.

"Nora!" he gasped-"my little Nora! Denny-boys! she is hurt-dead!"

"Neither," answered the big watchman promptly, placing a soothing hand on the foreman's quivering arm. "Steady, old man, now!"

"Give her to me!" shouted Forgan, in a frenzy. "Nora, my little Nora! What has happened? what has happened?"

The big fellow had one idol, one warm corner in his heart-his little grandchild.

His rugged brow corrugated, and he was frantic beyond all reason as he covered the still white face with kisses, nestling the motionless child in his arms tenderly.

"Take her into the office," directed Denny. "Give her air, lads-and get some cold water, some of you."

He blocked the doorway with his bulky frame as the foreman and his charge passed through, admitting a moment later a switchman with a can of water, and two of the older engineers at his heels.

Then he closed the door, and looked around for Ralph. The latter had sunk to a bench, still pale and faint-looking. The lame helper was ransacking his locker. Coming thence with some clean waste and a bottle of liniment, he snatched up a pail, went outside, got some warm water from a locomotive, and approached Ralph.

Ralph regarded him in some wonder, but made no demur as the strange, silent fellow began to wash and dress his injured arm with a touch soft and careful as that of a woman.

Big Denny continued to stand on guard at the closed door of the foreman's little office.

The crowd from the outside was exchanging information with the roundhouse throng, trying to patch mutual disclosures together into some coherency.

Ike Slump's look of malevolent gratification had faded away. He began to surmise that Ralph had a purpose in so summarily deserting his post, and that the anticipated "turning of the tables" was not destined to materialize.

"What's the rights of things, Denny?" asked one of the engineers. "That was little Nora Forgan, wasn't it!"

"Sure-and you know what she is to gruff old Tim, apple of his eye. If anything happened to her, I believe he'd go mad."

"He's pretty near there now, with his tantrums!" volunteered a voice from the crowd.

"I think this will cure him a bit," said Denny. "The little one has been bringing him his dinner lately, you know. A child like that has no business along the tracks, but he usually had her come back of the roundhouse, where there wasn't so much risk. This time, I suppose she feared she'd be late, and crossed over the busiest switches. My heart stood still, lads, when, ten minutes since, five hundred feet away from her, I saw her trip, fall, strike her head on the rails, and lay there stunned, squarely in the way of a dead-end freight, coming."

Big Denny squirmed with real feeling in his powerful, husky voice, as he dabbed the perspiration from his brow.

"Next thing, I saw a flash come out through the roundhouse door here. It was-him!"

Mechanically the crowd turned. Twenty pairs of eyes rested on Ralph, whom Denny had pointed out.

"Yes, sir-it was him, young Fairbanks! He's got the right blood in him, that kid. I knew his father, and he wouldn't be Jack Fairbanks' son if he hadn't acted just as he did!"

No comment could have pleased Ralph more than that. He darted a grateful look at his bulky champion.

"No one any good seemed to have noticed the accident except him," went on Denny, the eyes of his absorbed auditors again riveted intently upon him. "I counted the seconds in a sort of sickly horror, for it seemed impossible that he could make it in time."

"But he did!" cried a strained voice.

"He did-it was terrifying. The last ten feet he saw his only chance. It was like a fellow sliding for base. Flat he dived and drove. It must have been an awful scrape! The first wheels of the backing car fairly reached the little angel's long, golden curls. As it was, they cut the dangling hat straight in two. He grabbed her, just escaping the wheels, not a second too soon."

With a working face the lame helper had stood listening, rooted to the spot like a statue.

The crowd swayed towards Ralph. They were all in one uniform mood of admiration for his nervy exploit, only they expressed it in different ways.

A dozen shook his hand till they nearly wrung it off; a big, bluff fireman, with a fist like a ham, slapped his shoulders so exuberantly that the contact nearly drove the breath out of his body.

"As to that little heap of rubbish," observed Big Denny, with lofty contempt indicating the broken brick wall-"I reckon Tim Forgan won't let that count against the life of that child."

Ralph arose to his feet.

"But I didn't do it," he asseverated.

"Don't you worry about trifles, kid," advised Denny.

"But I didn't!" insisted Ralph.

Denny looked annoyed. He wished to dismiss the subject peremptorily while his hero was still on the pedestal, and, human-like, he believed Ralph was trying to square himself at the cost of a lame explanation, or a lie.

"That's-that's right," suddenly interposed a quavering voice.

"Hello!" laughed Denny, turning to confront the sphinx-like helper, whose taciturnity was proverbial. "You'll be making a speech, next!"

"Yes," bolted out the lame helper, very much agitated over his own unusual temerity.

"Give it a voice, Limpy."

"He didn't do it."

"Didn't do what?"

"Run that engine into the wall."

"How do you know?"

"I saw him-he started her up, but shut her off, dead, before he jumped for the tracks and ran outside."

Ralph looked surprised, but pleased, Big Denny convinced, and the crowd tremendously interested.

On the outskirts of the crowd Ike Slump gave ear, perked up his face in a grimace, and a minute later sneaked out of the place.

"Saw the whole thing," declared Limpy. "Fellow in the next engine leaned over soon as Fairbanks left, slipped the lever, and let her drive."

"Who was it?" demanded the watchman indignantly.

"Slump, the scamp."

"Where is he?"

The crowd made a search, but it was unavailing-Ike Slump had "jumped his job" permanently, to all appearances, for his locker was empty.

The fireman came out of the office.