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

At all events, recalling the obstruction of the chained ties, Ralph and Zeph had gone to the spot.

“That obstruction,” explained Ralph, “had certainly been placed before the theft of the pay car, anticipatory of what was planned to happen.”

“Yes, it looks that way,” nodded Adair thoughtfully.

“The car must have run on strong gravity to the bumper, and went over the edge of the roadway at that point. She struck down over one hundred feet, breaking through the tops of trees. The snow later covered all traces of the descent. You will find the car lying near an old abandoned quarry house, a mere heap of kindling.”

“And the safes and the money parrels?”

“Not a trace. However, Mr. Adair, it is no easy way to get out of the ravine with those stout heavy bank safes, and I advise that a guard be left in the vicinity.”

“You have solved the mystery of the pay car, Fairbanks,” said the road officer in a gratified tone-“now to find out what has become of the plunder.”

“You will remain here, Mr. Adair?” inquired Ralph.

“Until I have made a thorough investigation and placed my men, certainly,” responded the detective.

“I wish to put in a few hours at a side line investigation, if you please, and may not see you again until tomorrow, and I wish to take Dallas with me.”

“All right,” said Adair. He looked as if he would like to know more of Ralph’s plans, but he had too much confidence in his young helper to question him.

As to Ralph, he had a decided reason for not explaining to the road officer. Glen Palmer was on his mind strongly, and a good many strange things that Glen had told him had impressed him with the conviction that the grandfather of the unfortunate Glen had been a pretty important element in the plots of the conspirators all along the line.

Zeph, while at the camp of the plotters, had heard considerable they did not intend him to hear. They had spoken of the Palmers-grandfather and grandson, many times.

“From what they said,” declared Zeph, “I could easily decide that they discovered old Palmer, knowing him to be just the man they could use. Without Glen knowing it, they got him away from home several times. They played on his simple vanity, making him believe they would later get him a great job with a big railroad. Glen was heart-broken when he discovered this. The crowd finally got his grandfather in captivity. Glen tried to rescue him, and they caged him up, too.”

“I begin to understand the circumstances under which the poor fellow sent those two warning messages,” murmured Ralph. “Thief or no thief, he was loyal to me.”

“I think it, too, and I think he could tell you lots,” said Zeph. “I know his grandfather could. Both escaped finally, but where they went I don’t know.”

Ralph knew at least where Glen was. He remembered the town at which his arrest had been reported. It was less than twenty miles distant, and they caught a fast freight. Ralph went at once to the workhouse of the thriving little town. He inquired for Glen Palmer, but was informed that the following day was visitor’s day, and that the rules were never broken except on special orders from the superintendent, who was absent at present.

“I will call tomorrow, then,” said Ralph. “I wish, though, you would see Glen Palmer and tell him so. He may have some important message for me.”

“You guessed it, sure enough,” reported the prison guard, returning with a folded fragment of a note. “Young Palmer was frantic to know you was here, and says please don’t forget and come tomorrow.”

“I will certainly be here, or some one representing me,” promised Ralph, and then he read the note, which ran:

“I am terribly anxious to know if my grandfather arrived safely at the home of my friend, Gregory Drum, at Ironton, where I sent him a few days ago.”

Ralph and his companion went on to Ironton at once. They located the Drum residence, but did not find its proprietor at home. His wife, a thin, nervous lady, told how a few days before an old man named Palmer had come there, saying that his son was well known to her husband, which the lady believed to be true.

“He acted so strange I was nearly frightened to death,” narrated the lady. “The second day here I found him astride of the roof ordering some imaginary men to string it with wires. The next day a neighbor came running in to tell me that he was up on a telegraph pole with a little pocket clicker. My husband was away, I was frightened for the man’s good as well as my own, and I had him taken in charge by the town marshal. He’ll treat him kindly till my husband returns, and Mr. Palmer will be in safe hands.”

Ralph followed up this explanation by going at once to the marshal’s headquarters. There was a low, one-story building with an office, and a barred room comfortably furnished beyond. The marshal listened to Ralph’s story with interest.

“I’ll be glad if you can make head or tail out of the old fellow,” he said, and led the way into the barred room.

“Hello!” exclaimed Ralph, with a violent start as he entered the apartment.

“Thunder! I say, where did you get him?” ejaculated Zeph Dallas, with an amazed stare.

Across a cot lay a man asleep. He wore a stained bandage across his head and was haggard and wretched looking.

“Oh, that?” replied the marshal. “That’s mystery No. 2. That’s a bigger puzzle than the old telegrapher. He’s the man we picked up mad as a March hare, with twenty thousand dollars in banknotes in his pockets.”

“Zeph,” spoke Ralph in a quick whisper, “you know who it is?”

“Sure, I know who it is,” responded Zeph with alacrity. “It’s Rivers, the king bee of the pay car robbers.”

CHAPTER XXXI – QUICK WORK

The young train dispatcher had made a momentous discovery. He beckoned Zeph to follow him on tiptoe so they should not disturb nor be seen by Rivers. They somewhat surprised the marshal by crowding out of the room.

“There’s the queer old fellow, Palmer, you asked about,” said the official, pointing to a form occupied at a table at the other end of the room. “Don’t you want to see him?”

“No, not just now,” replied Ralph, drawing the man confidentially to one side. “We have not come here out of curiousity, but on a question of great importance. I represent the Great Northern Railroad, and you can help us very greatly.”

“Can I? Good. I’ll do it, then,” instantly answered the marshal. “I’m not used to having such heavy cases as those two in there, and they pester me.”

“Tell us about the man who seems hurt and sick.”

“Why, he was brought in a few nights since by our man who watches the rivermen. They’re a rough, bad lot. He found this man on a carouse in one of their haunts. Showing all kinds of money. He watched them, and jumped in just as they attacked the man and were about to rob him. We found over twenty thousand dollars in bank notes on the man-think of that! Only once since then has he entirely recovered from that cut on his head, and refused to give his name or say a word, except that his money came from a gold mine.”

“Yes, a gold mine on wheels,” observed Zeph pointedly.

“The man’s mind is affected by the blow he got, and only a few minutes at a time has he been rational. He offered me all his money if I’d let him go. Funny thing, though; in one of his spells early this morning I found him whispering to old Palmer.”

“Did you?” pressed Zeph eagerly.

“The old man ain’t right, you know, but he sticks to that click-clack contrivance all the time. I watched the two, and the prisoner promised Palmer all kinds of things if he’d get free and send a certain message to a certain party, or somehow get the telegram sent. Well, since then the old man has been terribly busy with his play telegraph device, and excited, too. About an hour since he calls me to him, and says he will certainly get me a thousand dollars if I will take a message to the operator here. Only ten words, he says-one hundred dollars a word. I told him I wouldn’t do anything until the sheriff came back tomorrow. He said only ten words. I asked him what ten words, and he shot out a lot of gibberish I couldn’t take in.”

“A cypher telegram,” murmured Zeph.

“Well, I left it that way.”

“Let me lurk around a bit, will you?” inquired Ralph.

“Certainly,” assented the marshal.

For the next ten minutes Ralph, hidden in a corner of the detention room, posted himself and listened. When he came out his face was excited and eager.

“Don’t let those prisoners send out a word or see a single person until I come back to you,” he directed the marshal.

“All right. Found out something?”

“I think I have. I’ll know for sure inside of six hours.”

“And let me know, too. You see all this bothersome mystery is worrying me.”

“You first of all,” declared Ralph, “and you won’t lose by coöperating with us.”

“I see you’re smart boys,” observed the inexperienced marshal, “and I trust in your word to straighten out this tangle.”

“What, Ralph?” broke in Zeph eagerly, as they left the place.

“I think I’ve got the clew.”

“To what?”

“The whole pay car business-at least the start of one.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I simply listened to Glen’s grandfather at his dummy ticker. Poor old man! He fancies he is being sought for by great railroad systems all over the world to take charge of their business. He ticked off all kinds of telegrams to important people. Then I caught the thread of a message he seemed to have particularly on his mind. It is just ten words, and of course must be the one he wanted the marshal to send. There it is.”

Ralph showed a card on the back of which he had penciled down the following words:

“Rajah Sun and Moon Aeroplane Spectacles exemplar. Pardon Star Mudji.”

Quick as a flash Zeph hauled out the written screed he had acquired while in the company of the conspirators. It comprised the formula of their cypher code.

“Advise Jem and Parsons,” he translated at once. “Barn loft plunder. Get me bail.” “Who to, Ralph?” he inquired eagerly-“the telegram.”

“Mrs. Hannah Clifton, Dunbar Station.”

“A relative, I’ll bet. You’re right, we’ve got the clew! ‘Barn loft plunder.’ Ralph, Dunbar Station, quick!”

“Yes,” said the young dispatcher quietly, “that’s our terminus, as quick as we can make it.”

Ralph’s special pass furnished him by the road officer came in good.

It brought them a lift on an urgency locomotive and another on the tender of the Daylight Express. At three o’clock that afternoon after due inquiry the two friends approached a house in a lonely settlement at the edge of Dunbar Station.

As they neared the house a woman knitting on its steps arose hurriedly, ran into the house and shut every door and window about the place.

“Acts sort of scared, eh?” suggested Zeph, as they approached the front of the house.

“Or suspicious,” remarked Ralph.

“Stop right there. Who are you, and what do you want?”

The boys paused summarily, a bit taken off their balance. Very suddenly the barrel of a long shotgun was thrust through the slats of one of the wooden shutters, and the voice which challenged them showed no timidity or nonsense.

“We want to see Mrs. Hannah Clifton,” replied Ralph politely, revealing himself.

“What for?” demanded the uncompromising invisible challenger.

“Why-er-that is-” began the rattled Zeph stammeringly.

“Shut up,” whispered Ralph unceremoniously. “In behalf of Mr. Rivers,” added Ralph ahead.

“He sent you, did he?”

“We just came from him.”

“On business, I suppose?”

“Yes, madam.”

“All right, then he gave you a word.”

“Password!” whispered Zeph desperately.

“Sun and Moon,” ventured Ralph recklessly.

“Wrong!” cried the woman as quick as lightning. “I see your game. You’re guessing. If you don’t make yourselves scarce in two minutes, I’ll fire.”

She did not wait the limit. The fowling piece scattered skithering bird shot with a flare just as the intruders got out of range.

“She’s too keen for us-get to the barn, Ralph,” suggested Zeph breathlessly.

“Yes, run,” ordered Ralph.

They reached it, ran to cover and peered out. The woman, gun in hand, dashed from the house in the direction of a nest of small huts in the vicinity.

“She is going to rouse up some of her friends, I have not the least doubt,” observed Ralph. “Quick action, Zeph. That telegram said ‘barn loft!’”

“Whoo-oop!”

Already the impetuous Zeph had acted on the impulse of the moment. He was up in the loft already. Mingled with his chucklings were the rustlings of hay, a dragging sound. Down on Ralph’s head came a bulky object as he started up the cleated side of the barn.

“Bags-two of them! Money! Pay envelopes!” gasped the young road officer in a transport of wild excitement. “Rivers hid them here. The woman don’t know. Hustle, get out. She may bring a mob after us. Oh, I’m a-I’m a great detective at last!”

“You are, and always were,” cheered Ralph with a happy smile. He felt well satisfied. The very feeling of the stuffed bags, a mere glance at their contents, told the young railroader that they were lugging to safety a fortune probably amounting to over two hundred thousand dollars.

They lost no time in cutting across the fields towards the town, each bearing a share of the precious burden.

At the local bank Ralph amazed the proprietor by demanding that the bags be locked up in his strongest vaults as the property of the Great Northern railroad.

Then he hurried to the office of the company railroad operator at Dunbar Station.

There was a brief explanation, a quick call for headquarters, the urgency signal, 25, and Ralph could fancy loyal old John Glidden at headquarters throwing open the entire lines for final orders in the great pay car mystery case.

East, west, south the messages flew: to the general superintendent, to Bob Adair, to the marshal, to the paymaster at Stanley Junction.

The unobtrusive station operator stared in bewilderment at the quick, natty stranger, who seemed to have no trouble in keeping track of a dozen different messages at once. It took Ralph fully an hour, with details, repeats and clean up. He arose from the instrument with a satisfied face.

“I’ve done my work, Zeph,” he said, “and I’m going back to headquarters. You are to wait here for instructions from Mr. Adair. They will come sharp and brisk, don’t be afraid. We have started the ball rolling, the rest will be easy.”

CHAPTER XXXII – CONCLUSION

“What are you doing here, Fairbanks?”

Ralph had just entered the train dispatcher’s office after a good night’s sleep and sat down at his usual post of duty.

He felt pretty good, for he was rested up, and Glidden had spared a minute from some rush business to tell him that Adair had coralled the whole crowd of conspirators, bank bullion and all.

The general superintendent of the Great Northern, however, seemed to feel even better than Ralph himself. He had swung into the office with bright eyes and a beaming face, and while his challenge might sound to the uninitiated like a conventional call down, the head official looked as if he would like to grab the hand of his loyal, useful young assistant and hurrah at him.

“Getting back to routine, sir,” said Ralph with a pleasant laugh.

“Wrong box.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” began Ralph.

“Don’t. Then I’ll show you,” announced the official with a forcible chuckle. “Can’t have insubordination and men out of place in this service. There’s your desk,” and seizing Ralph by the arm the superintendent led him past the counter into the little office rarely occupied, and marked on its door “Chief Dispatcher-Private.”

“I will need your signature to get some autograph pads made,” continued the official, picking up the stand containing the various rubber stamps in use. “What are you staring at, Fairbanks?”

“You don’t mean-”

“Promotion? oh, yes, I do. That was settled on after the fruit special affair, but so many rushing things came along since we couldn’t get around to you. Just make out a list of your new office requirements and changes in men and routine, and I’ll O. K. them.”

There was a suspicious sound in the open doorway. It was half between a sniffle and a chuckle.

“Here, you old rascal!” cried the superintendent, reaching out and grabbing the escaping Glidden, “no hanging around here,” and he dragged him into the room. “First official act, Fairbanks, discharge this man. Then make him assistant manager. He’s too fine for a simple first trick man.”

“Oh, but you’re doing things!” commented the old operator, trying to disguise his aroused emotions.

“For those who have done things for us, exactly,” answered the superintendent briskly. “Both of you come to my office at 10 a. m. You will probably be interested in hearing the final wind-up of the pay car mystery.”

It was certainly a remarkable meeting, that which the two friends attended.

Bob Adair was there with his report, brisk, animated and proud of his success. Zeph Dallas, excited and delighted, seemed to grow a foot when the superintendent gave him a personal word of praise for his efforts.

The initial work of Ralph Fairbanks had started in action all the efficient machinery of the road. As Zeph described it, once the first clew got to Adair he just seemed to spread out a great net and caught everybody and everything in it.

By midnight five of the principal conspirators had been run down and locked up. Some confessions were the result. Best of all, these brought out the secret connection of these men with the rival road.

“There is a pretty heavy bill to pay, but certain officials of the Midland Central will be glad to pay it,” declared Adair.

“What had the robbers done with the bank bullion?” inquired the superintendent.

“They had no means of breaking open the strong safes quickly, and dropped them all down the well near the old deserted hut in Eagle Pass, intending to return later when the chase was over and rifle them at their leisure.”

“Yes, that was the real gold mine Rivers boasted about,” submitted Ralph.

“We have secured a list of all the ‘suspicious’ men among the telegraphers,” continued Adair. “They will trouble us no further with delays, smash-ups and cut wires. Chief Dispatcher Fairbanks has already cleared the service, and the Great Northern can go on its way smoothly.”

There was one favor Ralph asked before the conference broke up. This was that the fireman who had helped him in the record run of the California fruit special be remembered. It was granted, and the honest fellow was given a promotion.

“On the side, Fairbanks,” said the road officer, familiarly linking Ralph’s arm as they left the office of the general superintendent, “I wish to express a change of opinion on one subject.”

“What is that, Mr. Adair?” inquired Ralph.

“Glen Palmer.”

“You have seen him?” asked Ralph with interest.

“Yes, and you will see him, too, as soon as he is pardoned, which will be within twenty-four hours, if the influence of the Great Northern counts for anything. He is a noble young fellow.”

“I thought that all along.”

“I didn’t, and I am ashamed of myself for the sentiment. He is no thief, and never was a thief.”

“Not even-”

“The department store episode? No. He was trying to escape from the conspirators, who pressed him closely. He found himself stranded without a penny in an unfriendly town. In order to get the money to place his aged relative in a position of safety, he pretended to take the jewelry we know about so his grandfather could claim the ten dollars reward and carry out their plans.”

“I am truly glad to hear this,” said Ralph warmly. “And the convict portrait Ike Slump had?”

“Is really that of a cousin very much resembling Glen. He was the cause of Glen’s wanderings and troubles. He was a sad scamp, but his health is broken. He escaped from jail, and Glen was willing to shoulder his identity until he got safely out of the country, where he now is trying to redeem his broken past.”

“What of the old grandfather, Mr. Adair?”

“Glen wishes to repurchase the chicken farm. He loves the business. His grandfather is at heart a harmless old man, and Glen believes would soon forget his vagaries and settle down to a happy life.”

“They shall have all the help I can give them,” promised Ralph heartily.

Adair accompanied Ralph as far as the dispatcher’s office. Glidden had preceded them. He just sat down at the operating table when a click at his instrument caused first trick man, second trick man, copy operator and Ralph himself to listen attentively.

A call had come giving a “sine” or signature that never ran over the wire without making every man in the dispatcher’s office sit up and take notice-the “sine” of the president of the Great Northern himself.

“For you, Mr. Fairbanks,” spoke the old operator with a vast chuckle and excessive politeness: “Mr. Fairbanks, Chief Dispatcher Great Northern: Congratulations.”

“Fairbanks,” spoke the road officer, grasping the hand of the young railroader warmly, “I’m proud of you!”

Ralph flushed with pride and pleasure. But however warmly the generous words of commendation from the railroad men thrilled the young chief dispatcher, they paled into insignificance when the lad, on reaching home that night, heard his mother say:

“Ralph, my son, you have made me very proud!” And then, woman-like, she added: “But don’t do it again, Ralph. You-you might get hurt!”

“All right, mother,” he promised, as he kissed her. “Only I don’t believe those chaps will have a chance to make trouble for me or the railroad again-that is, not right away.”

THE END