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

Extending from the depot along the tracks for half a mile were small hotels, workingmen's boarding houses, second-hand stores, restaurants saloons, and all kinds of little business places.

They comprised a nest where most of the drinking and all of the crime of the place occurred. It was not a desirable quarter, but Ralph realized that within its precincts he was likely to locate Ike Slump, if at all in Stanley Junction.

Ralph put in an hour strolling in the vicinity. He kept a keen eye out for those of Ike's chosen chums whom he knew. He did not believe that Ike was likely to show himself much in the day-time. His father had been unable to find him, and Ike probably had some safe hide-out, and pickets on the lookout, besides.

About eleven o'clock, coming down the tracks near the scene of the battle royal, Ralph discovered half a dozen boys in the rear yard of a blacksmith shop.

Various vehicles, sheds and general yard litter enabled Ralph to approach them unobserved. He fancied that at least two of the crowd had been mixed up in the fracas which Van's valiant onslaught had terminated, for one had a swollen nose and another a black eye.

Ralph suddenly appeared before the crowd, engrossed in their game. They rose up, startled. Then he was apparently recognized, for a quick murmur went the rounds, and they quickly hunched together with lowering brows and suspicious looks.

"I want to have a word with you fellows," said Ralph bluntly.

They were six to one, and here was a golden opportunity to avenge the ignominious defeat they had sustained. Ralph's off-hand bearing, however, his clear eye and manly tones, impressed them, and perhaps, too, they had a wholesome fear that his giant-fisted champion, Van, might be lurking in the vicinity.

No one spoke, and Ralph resumed.

"See here, boys, this is business. I want to find Ike Slump, and it's for his own good. He's likely to get into trouble if he doesn't see his father very soon, and it will be the police, not me, next visit. His mother's sick, boys, sick abed, and heart-broken over his absence. Come, fellows, tell me where he is."

"You're pretty fresh!" spoke out one of the crowd. "What are you after? a bluff, or a give-away?"

"If you mean I am misrepresenting Ike's danger, or that I have any unfriendly feeling towards him," said Ralph, "you are entirely wrong. I'm trying to help him, for the sake of his poor mother and others-not hurt him."

Two or three heads went close together. There was a brief undertoned conference.

"We don't bite," finally announced the spokesman of the crowd. "We'll take your message to Ike. If he wants to find you, he knows how."

"All right," said Ralph, moving away-"only he may wait too long. I'll give you a quarter to put me in touch with him for two minutes."

No one responded to the offer. A little dirty-faced urchin, who looked unhappy and out of place with that motley crew, looked longingly at Ralph. No one called him back as he moved slowly away.

Ralph left the place, and had gone about two hundred yards down the track along a high fence, when he heard a thin, piping voice call out:

"Hold on, mister, back up-I want to tell you something!"

CHAPTER XX-THE HIDE-OUT

"Where are you?" Ralph inquired, somewhat mystified.

"Here I am-the wiggling stick. I'm behind it."

"Oh! I see!" said Ralph-"and who are you?"

"Me? Oh, nobody in particular."

Ralph now discovered that his challenger was on the other side of the close board fence, and through a crack was moving a thin splinter of wood up and down to indicate his exact location. Ralph came up to the spot.

"What do you want?" he inquired.

"That quarter, mister-you know, back there with the gang, I heard you. Well, here I am. Pass through the coin, will you?"

Ralph got a dim focus through the crack, and surmised that the speaker was the dirty-faced little fellow who had looked at him so longingly when he offered the money.

"You know where Ike Slump is?" asked Ralph.

"No, I don't, mister."

"Well, then?"

"But I can put you on."

"On to what?"

"Where he goes every night-where you're sure to find him after dark."

"Well, tell me."

"See here, mister," piped the little fellow in an uncertain voice. "The gang 'd kill me if they knew I was giving 'em away, but I'm just about starving. Because I'm little they make me do all kinds of work, and when there's anything to eat they forget I'm around. They stole some melons out of the cars last night. All I got was the rind."

"Who are you, anyway?" asked Ralph.

"Oh, I'm nobody. I was at the county farm, but run away and got in with these fellows. Wish I was back! I'd go, only they'd punish me and lock me up. You give me the quarter, and I'll meet you later and show you where Ike Slump hangs out nights."

"You'll keep your promise?"

"Honor bright!"

"Where will you be?"

"Right here, only outside the fence."

"What time?"

"Just at dark."

"I'll do it," said Ralph, slipping a twenty-five-cent piece through the crack in the fence. "Remember, now. I trust you, and I'll give you as much more to-night if you don't play me any tricks."

"Crackey! that's fine; only you keep mum on my showing you?"

"I certainly will," assured Ralph.

He did not feel certain that he had accomplished much. It all depended on the reliability of the urchin. Ralph went back to the roundhouse and told the foreman he could do nothing further toward locating Ike Slump until nightfall, and put in the afternoon at his regular duties, although Forgan told him he need not do so.

Ralph went home at quitting-time, got his supper, explained to his mother that he had something to attend to for the foreman, and not to worry if he was not back early.

He reached the rendezvous agreed on at dusk, and after a few minutes' waiting saw the little fellow of the morning coming down the tracks.

"I'm here," announced the new arrival.

"So am I, as you see," answered Ralph. "How did you get on to-day-let's see, what is your name?"

"Teddy."

"All right, Teddy. Did you get something to eat?"

"Not a great deal. The fellow saw me buying some grub. I told 'em I found a quarter, and they made me play craps with the change-twenty cents."

"Of course you lost."

"Oh, sure-knew that before I began. They always win, them fellows. Say, mister, please, I'll go ahead alone, because if any of them should happen to see me with you it would be all-day for Teddy!"

"Go ahead," directed Ralph.

The boy went down the tracks. At the end of the fence he turned into a yard with a barn at the back. The building in front was a dilapidated two-story frame structure. The windows at the rear were fastened up, but the one doorway visible was open, and led into a dark hallway.

Teddy had paused near a wagon, and looked anxious to get away.

"That's the place," he said. "You go in that door and up some stairs. There's a big room in front where the crowd meet nights, and play cards, and drink and smoke. Ike Slump spends all his evenings here."

"All right," said Ralph. "There's another quarter. See here, Teddy, if you'll come down to the roundhouse to-morrow, I'll give you a good dinner. I want to have a talk with you."

"Well, I'll see," said the urchin, palming the coin with a chuckle and disappearing at once.

Ralph looked the place over. Finally, from his knowledge of the street beyond, he located it properly in his mind. The building, was in the middle of what was known as Rotten Row. It was a double store front, one half of which was occupied by a cheap barber shop. The other half, Ralph remembered, was a second-hand clothing store run by a man named Cohen, who also did something in the pawnbroker line.

Ralph had often noticed the dilapidated place, and knew that its denizens had a shady reputation. He realized that Cohen was just about the man to encourage boys to hang around and steal, and doubtless controlled the rooms upstairs.

Ralph entered the dark rear hallway after some deliberation. When he reached the top of the stairs he paused and listened.

Under the crack of the door some gleams of light showed. The front room of the upper story lay beyond, Ralph theorized. He could catch a low hum of voices, the click of dominoes, and there was a tobacco taint in the atmosphere. He ran his hand over the door, but it had no knob. the keyhole was plugged up, and he could not see into the room.

Ralph judged from the appearance of things that Ike Slump came to the place by the front way, so there was no use waiting for him at the rear stairs. He reasoned, too, that if he went around to the front he would be seen by some of Ike's cohorts, and the latter would be warned and kept out of the way.

"I wish I could get a chance into that front room," mused Ralph. "Once I come in range of Ike, I think I can at least say enough to get him to listen to me."

There was one other room on the second floor and one other door. Ralph found a knob here. But the door was locked. It had, unlike the other door, a transom. The sash of this was gone, and the space stopped up with a loose sheet of manilla paper.

Ralph lightly lifted himself to the knob on one foot. He pushed at the paper, and it moved out free except at two corners where it was tacked. It was no trick at all for Ralph to lift himself through the transom and drop to the floor on the other side.

With some satisfaction he noticed that this room connected with the front apartment, the light coming in over its transom reflecting into the rear room so that he could make out its contents plainly.

At one side stood a big hogshead nearly full of loose excelsior, used for packing. Near it were as many as twenty flat boxes. Ralph touched one with his foot. He could not budge it, and then, drawing closer, he looked into a box with its cover off, and saw that it was nearly full of brass fittings.

"They're here, there's a lot of them," breathed Ralph quickly, "packed up for shipment. This is a find! What had I better do?"

The discovery modified all Ralph's prearranged plans. He knew quite well that if found in this room his presence would show a prima facieevidence that he knew the storage place of the stolen plunder. Ralph decided to get out as quickly as he had got in, and try to come upon Ike from some other point of the compass, without giving the alarm to Cohen, or whoever really controlled the stolen goods.

Before he could make a move, however, a key grated in the lock of the connecting room. The knob was broken off on the inside of the door over which he had just clambered. To reach the transom and get sufficient purchase to let himself over through the aperture he would have to have a box or chair to stand on.

There was no time to select either. The door leading to the front room came briskly open. Ralph looked for a hiding place. None presented, for the boxes lay flat on the floor, and the hogshead was away from the side wall.

Ralph thought quick and acted on an impulse. He thrust his arm down into the hogshead. Its light contents gave way to the touch.

Leaping its rim, Ralph sank as in a snowbank, ducked down his head, pulled the stringy wooden fiber over it, and snuggled inside the hogshead, out of view.

CHAPTER XXI-A FREE RIDE

The hogshead in which Ralph had ensconced himself was made of loose, defective staves. He found himself facing an aperture, through which he could look quite readily.

Two persons entered the room. One was Ike Slump. The other Ralph recognized as the second-hand dealer, Cohen. The latter carried a lamp, which he placed on a shelf. He closed the door after him, and sat down on a box. Ralph's range of vision was immediately impeded. Ike had lifted himself to the edge of the hogshead and perched there, his feet dangling and beating a tattoo on the staves with his heels.

"Now then, Slump," were Cohen's first words, "you're bound to leave?"

"Haven't I got to?" demanded Ike testily. "I'm in a nice box, I am-lost my job, don't dare to go home, and no money."

"I gave you some."

"A measly ten dollars in a week, not a fiftieth part of what I brought in. See here, Cohen, you haven't given me a fair deal. I've taken all the risk, and what have I got?"

"The risk? the risk?" repeated Cohen. "My young friend, it's me who takes all the risk. Suppose the railroad men should drop in here and find the stuff? Where would I be? As to money, will anybody else you know touch the stuff?"

"Well, I've got to get some funds, I'm going to slope the town for good," announced Ike. "Now, there'll be no slip up if I carry out your plans?"

"Not a bit of it," answered Cohen. "I have no facilities here for handling railroad junk. Jacobs, at Dover, has. I don't dare to ship it by rail. He has his own melters. I furnish the horse and wagon. We'll load you up, and cover the boxes with vegetables. All you've got to do is to drive out of town and deliver the goods at Dover. You say your friend, the tramp, will go with you?"

"Yes, but what about the team? I won't come back, you know. I'm going West for a spell."

"Jacobs will attend to the team. See, here is a letter-give it to him. He'll give you the twenty-five dollars I promised you, and that's the end of it."

"All right. What time shall we start?"

"When the town is asleep, and nobody nosing around. Say one o'clock, sharp."

"I'll be ready."

The conference seemed ended. Ralph comprehended that his double mission would be ineffective unless he got word to Ike Slump's father and the roundhouse foreman within the next four hours.

He lay snug and still, formulating an escape from the place as soon as the two plotters should withdraw.

Ike slipped to the floor, took out a cigarette, lit it, threw the match away, and stretched his arms and yawned.

"Give me a little loose change to play with the crowd, Cohen, will you?" he asked.

Cohen reached in his pocket, but very quickly drew out his hand again empty, to point it excitedly at the hogshead with the sharp cry.

"Fire! look there! You stupid, see what you've done!"

"What have I done? Ginger-the cigarette!"

Ralph quivered as he listened and looked. A swishing sound accompanied a brilliant flare. Ike had carelessly thrown the match with which he had lighted his cigarette into the midst of the dry, tindery excelsior.

"Put it out! Stamp it out!" yelled Cohen.

Ike grabbed a handful or two of the flaming mass, burned his fingers, and retreated, while Cohen made a frightened rush for a stand in one corner of the room holding a big pitcher.

He ran at the hogshead with it. It was half-full of water. Cohen doused it into the hogshead just as Ralph, unable to stand the pressure any longer, arose upright.

Ike gave a stare and a shout. Cohen jumped back with alarm in his face. The water had extinguished the blaze, but the episode had betrayed Ralph's presence to his enemy.

"Who are you?" ejaculated Cohen darkly, grasping, the pitcher and again advancing.

"Needn't ask him-I know!" snapped out Ike. "Grab him, Cohen! It's Ralph Fairbanks, from the roundhouse, and he's a spy!"

Ralph leaned a hand on the hogshead rim to get purchase for a leap out of his difficulties. Ike made a spring for him and grabbed one arm, preventing the movement.

"If he's a railroader and a spy," cried Cohen, "we're in for it!"

"Don't let him go, then-oh!"

Ike went spinning, for Ralph had given him a quick blow, knocking him aside. Cohen swung the pitcher aloft. Down it came with terrific force. Ralph experienced a blow on the side of the head that instantly shut out sense and sight. He fell over the edge of the hogshead, and hung there limp and lifeless.

It was the first blank in his life. Its duration Ralph could only surmise as he opened his eyes. At first he fancied he was blind, for everything was pitchy black about him. He sat up with difficulty, putting a hand to his head where it felt sore and smarted.

Ralph found a bad cut there, which had bled profusely. The blow with the pitcher had been cruelly heavy. He sat up, swaying to and fro, and soon traced out his environment.

He was in a freight car, its doors and windows were closed, and it was rolling along at a good fast rate of speed.

Ralph reasoned out his situation. His enemies had fancied he was seriously hurt, or wanted him out of the way until they could safely remove the stolen plunder. His hopes and plans were effectually balked if he had been long insensible, or was far on the free trip, for which they had booked him. They had carried him from Cohen's rooms by way of the back stairs, had thrown him into the empty car, and had left him to his fate.

Ralph tried the side door of the car. To his satisfaction it shoved open freely. Getting his eyes used to the darkness and his mind clearer, as the moments sped by, he endeavored to guess his location and estimate the time.

He was partly familiar with the road, and knew considerable as to the various passenger and freight trains and their schedule and route. Ralph concluded that he was on the regular nine o'clock freight, which usually hauled empties, going south. Judging from distant lights in houses scattered on the landscape, he estimated that it was about ten o'clock.

He soon surmised from landmarks he passed that the train was not on the main line. As he neared a cattle pen he knew exactly where he was-two miles from Acton and about twenty-two from Stanley Junction.

"They don't stop for ten miles," quickly reckoned Ralph. "There's the creek. I've got to get to Acton and back to the Junction before midnight, if I hope to accomplish anything."

The train slowed somewhat on the up grade. Ralph clung to the door and looked ahead. It was a long train, and he was at about its middle. He had an idea of trying to get to the roof, run back to the caboose, and try and interest the conductor. On second thought, however, he realized that he could not expect them to stop for him. He would only lose time. A daring idea presented itself to his mind, and his breath came quick. An opportunity hovered, and he had too much reliance in himself to let it pass by.

"I've got to get back and stop the removal of that stolen plunder," he kept telling himself over and over, fixing his eyes on the signals that indicated the bridge over the creek.

Ralph posed for a spring as the locomotive struck the bridge and the gleaming waters came nearer and nearer. The bridge had no railing, and they were on the outer side; Ralph posed himself steady and true, let go the door, and leaped into the darkness as the car he was in reached the middle of the bridge.

Then he dropped down like a shot, struck the cold, deep water, and went under.

CHAPTER XXII-BEHIND TIME

The boy was completely at home in the water, but the present instance was somewhat extraordinary. The shock and chill of his daring jump, added to his naturally weakened condition after Cohen's stunning blow with the pitcher, helped to confuse him. But he never lost his presence of mind, and as he felt himself deprived of his usual buoyancy, he struck out under water for the shore.

He waited on the bank long enough for the water to drip off from him, and getting his breath, started to regain the railroad tracks.

When he came to a little station he found it closed for the night, but he knew that the agent must live in some one of the few houses in the settlement. He might locate him and induce him to come to the station and telegraph to Stanley Junction. With the aid of a signal lantern, however, Ralph was able to see the clock in the station. It was a few minutes after ten o'clock.

"There's a train reaches the Junction at eleven twenty-five," he reflected. "By hustling I can catch it at Acton. I can tell more and do more personally in five minutes than I can in five hours by wiring."

Ralph reached Acton some minutes before the West train came in. He had some change in his pocket, paid his fare to the Junction, and went out on the rear platform as they neared the destination.

He left the train a mile from the depot, swinging off at a point that would enable him to reach the roundhouse foreman's house by a short cut.

Ralph found the place closed up. There was a light in one upper room, however, and he had only to knock twice when Forgan came to the door in his shirt-sleeves.

"Is it you, Fairbanks?" he said, in some surprise.

"Yes, sir, and-special!"

"Why, what have you been into?" exclaimed Forgan, catching a glimpse of Ralph's bedraggled form and disfigured head.

"I have been in a freight car for one thing, and in the river for another," said Ralph. "There is no time to lose, Mr. Forgan, if you want to get back those stolen fittings."

"You know where they are?"

"I know where they were at eight o'clock," responded Ralph, "but I know they won't be there much after midnight.

"Good-wait a minute," directed Forgan.

He hurried back into the house and returned drawing on his coat. "I was just going to bed," he explained. "Now, then, Fairbanks," as he led the way to the street. "Tell your story-quick."

Ralph recited his experience of the past four hours, and Forgan hastened his steps as the narration developed the necessity of sharp, urgent action.

"Fairbanks, you are a trump!" commended Forgan, as the story was all told. "I'll leave you here. You get home, into dry clothes, and have your hurt attended to. You had better take the sick-list benefits for a day or two. Good-night-till I have something more definite to say to you."

A dismissal did not suit Ralph at all. It looked like crowding him out of an exciting and interesting game only half-finished.

"I might help you some further," he began, but Forgan interrupted him with the words:

"You've done the real work, Fairbanks, and neither of us will care to muddle in with the details of arrest. I shall put the matter directly in the hands of the road detective, Matthewson. I am sorry for his father's sake if Ike Slump gets caught in the net, but he deserves it fully, and I can't stop to risk the interests of the railway company."

Ralph went home. As he expected, his mother was waiting up for him. She was not the kind of a woman to faint or get hysterical at the sight of a little blood, but she was anxious and trembling as she helped Ralph to get into comfortable trim.

"Don't worry, mother," said Ralph. "This is probably the end of trouble with the Ike Slump complication."

"I always fear an enemy, Ralph," sighed the widow. "It seems as if you are fated to have them at every step. I keep thinking day and night about Gasper Farrington's unmanly threat."

"Mother," said Ralph earnestly, "I am trying to do right, am I not?"

"Oh, Ralph-never a boy better!"

"Thank you, mother, that is sweet praise, and worth going through the experience that will make a man of me. Well, I am going to keep right on doing my duty the best way I know how. I expect ups and downs. Men like Farrington may succeed for a time, but in the end I believe I shall come out just right."

Ralph found himself a trifle sore and stiff the next morning, but he started for work as usual. He was curious as to the outcome of the foreman's action the night previous. Forgan, however, did not show up at the roundhouse till ten o'clock. He at once called Ralph into his little office.

"Well, Fairbanks," he said briskly, "I suppose you will be interested to know the outcome of last night's affair?"

"Very much so," acknowledged Ralph.

"The road detective and myself were at Cohen's before midnight. The birds had flown."

"Had they moved the plunder, too?"

"Yes, what you described as being in boxes was all carted away."

"And Ike Slump had gone?"

"Presumably. We found that two horses and a wagon belonging to Cohen were missing. The only person we found, outside of Cohen, was a little fellow asleep in an outside shed."

"Was his name Teddy?" And Ralph gave a rapid description of the county farm waif.

"That's the boy. He's in jail with Cohen, now. They want to detain him as a witness. In Cohen's barn, hidden under some hay, we found two old locomotive whistles. He claims that he did not know they were there. The road detective, however, says if we can fasten the least real suspicion on Cohen and break up his fence, we will have rooted out this robbery evil, for the crowd he housed and encouraged to steal has scattered."