CHAPTER XIITREACHERYThe heavy freight train broke in two. The locomotive plowed on for a few rods, and stopped. The switcher which Ralph Fairbanks was driving stopped just opposite the wreck.One glance was all that was necessary to show Ralph the cause of the disaster. The four heavily laden gondolas had been allowed to run a few feet too far. The corner of the gondola at the end stuck out over the curve of the switch and the first box car on Number Twenty-eight had caught upon its steel corner.This corner had ripped the sides of two box cars open; then the ruined cars had crashed over onto the other main track. Two following cars had jumped the rails and——“A four hour job for the wrecking crew, aside from the damage done,” declared Ralph to Nagle, when he came running up with Dooley, the yardmaster. “Where is the brakie you sent to guard that tail-end, Nagle?”“The rascal!” yelled the conductor. “He’s taken it on the run. We haven’t had him on the line but a few weeks. It is my opinion there are a lot of wabblies got jobs on this division just for the chance of hurting the road.”“I’ll fix ’em if I catch ’em!” yelled Dooley, almost frothing at the mouth he was so wild.The whistle was blowing the signal for the wrecking crew. All that Ralph could do was to go on with his task. As it happened, the wreck would not interfere with getting Number Eighty-seven out of the yard.He picked up one bunch after another of the cars numbered on his list, while the derrick was being brought up to clear the tracks and jack the unhorsed cars upon the rails again. Ralph knew that his assistant would be much troubled by this break in the schedule; but there were certain routine things to do about it, and that was all. Trains would have to be held outside in both directions until the main tracks in the yard were cleared.Not more than twenty minutes late the young fellow saw the big mogul backed down to the long string of cars and coupled on. The switcher was steaming on a side track, waiting for the next job. Eighty-seven pulled out of the yard safely and soon its parting hoot-too-hoot! could be heard beyond the hill.“Now what?” asked Ralph, as Dooley came along with another clip of papers in his hand.So much had been going on during the last few minutes that he had quite forgotten his own schedule. The excited Dooley was about to pass him up his list for the next freight when a tall figure came striding across the tracks from the vicinity of the wreck.“Cheese it!” gasped the fireman. “Here comes the Great-I-Am.”Mr. Barton Hopkins showed in his face about as much expression as Ralph had ever seen him display. And that expression was one of anger.“What is going on here, Yardmaster?” he demanded harshly. “Are you ready with your report on that accident yonder?”“I don’t know much about it,” said the boss doubtfully. “I didn’t see it. Mebbe Mr. Fairbanks, here——”This was shifting the responsibility in good truth. At another time Ralph might have been angry at Dooley. But he knew that the old man was much perturbed. Mr. Hopkins turned his scowling visage on the young train dispatcher.“What is Mr. Fairbanks doing on that switch engine?” asked the supervisor. “I understand that he was at fault in this accident. He kicked the pig-iron cars too far over the switch.”“Look here, Mr. Hopkins!” exclaimed Ralph, leaning from the window of the little cabin in sudden heat. “Who told you any such thing as that?”“I am so informed. My informant will doubtless appear at the proper time—when the case is thrashed out in my office.”“I’ll have some testimony to bring in, too, at that,” said Ralph hotly. “Only I doubt right here and now, Mr. Hopkins, your power to take me into your office. I am train dispatcher of this division——”“Stick to your job, then,” put in Mr. Hopkins sharply. “I ask you: What are you doing on that switch engine?”Ralph came down from the deck on the run. He tore off the overalls. His face blazed. He had to wait a moment to control his voice he was so angry.“If you think I have stepped in here where I have no business, believe me, I can get out,” he said. “I had no idea of turning in a time card for what I was doing. I helped out because I wanted to see things move. Dooley——”“Mr. Dooley much overstepped his authority when he allowed you to drive that switcher. He knew it—and knows it, now.”“What in thunder would I have done, Mr. Hopkins?” broke in the excited yardmaster. “Not a man on the list could I call——”“It was a matter to put up to your superior.”“Well, now!” roared the angry old man, “where wasyouwhen I needed to start things going after that danged striker hopped his job? Should I sit down and let the yard go stale and all this freight hang fire while I waited to consult you, Mr. Hopkins?”“That is exactly what you should have done,” declared the supervisor in the same decisive way.“Great Grief and Jumping Dromedaries!” yelled Dooley, and he literally went up into the air. “It is no wonder the men are striking. I don’t blame ’em! I am on strike myself from this moment——”He threw the clip of papers into the air, and it went hurtling over the nearest line of boxcars. His cap he snatched from his head and flung it yards away in the other direction. The man was for the moment mad!“I’m on strike! I’m on strike meself!” he bawled. “Me, that’s never gone out with the boys no matter what happened, for the last thutty years. I’m on strike!”“You are mistaken, Dooley,” cut in the icy voice of the supervisor. “You have not struck. You are discharged. Hand in your time and go. You are discharged for insubordination and inefficiency. I’ll take your keys.”“Well,” said Ralph, talking it over later with his assistant operator as they were trying to untangle the trains in the yard and those waiting on the near-by blocks, “we must hand it to supervisor Barton Hopkins. He is personally efficient. He found a day man to take poor Dooley’s place, he got a man for the switcher, and he dressed down the whole yard crew and set them to work again in an hour.”“But how long are they going to work?” grumbled the operator. “They all act like whipped dogs. That isn’t the way to run a division.”“It is his way of running it. And the G.M. says he is suiting the stockholders and directors right down to the ground. Oh, the railroad business is on the toboggan!”“Ha ha!” croaked the operator. “You sound like these other old stagers. I haven’t been in the game so long as you have, Fairbanks, although I am older than you. The pay is good and the hours not bad. Believe me! I’ve had worse jobs than train dispatching.”“Oh, so have I. But I feel at a time like this that I’d like to be into the game right, instead of sitting up here overlooking a railroad yard and making pin-pricks on a road map.”“Going back to the locomotive lever?”“Do you know,” said Ralph earnestly and softly, “while I was fiddling down there on that little old yard engine, I feltright. I wouldn’t want my mother to know it, for she always worried when I had a run, but I believe I was born for the throttle. I’m an engineer, and I always will be.”The morning paper was full of the strike of the shopmen, and the threat was made by McCarrey that the yardmen and switchers would be out within twenty-four hours.“We’re going to stop every wheel from turning on this division of the Great Northern,” the strike leader told the reporters. “And before we are through, we’ll plug both ends of the system so tight that the officials will have to come to our terms.”“How about the Brotherhoods?” he was asked.“That is bunk,” McCarrey declared. “The Brotherhood members are practically all with us. They don’t have to strike. We are going to strike for them. The roads can’t run trains if they have no shop workers or maintenance of way men. The engineers and firemen won’t take out trains after a while when they can’t get repairs made or road work kept up or switching done. No, sir, we’ve got ’em where we want ’em. Watch us.”“I guess they ought to be watched, all right,” Ralph told his mother at his late breakfast. “I wonder what Zeph is doing? I wonder where Mr. Adair is?”“I should think you wouldn’t worry about them,” said the widow. “They have their own work. You have yours, Ralph. Please don’t get mixed up in this ugly business.”“I guess you are quite right, Mother,” he said gravely. “I am glad to be in the train dispatching department. Of course, we are going to have a great deal of trouble putting any schedule through. But I do not believe the telegraphers will go on strike. My men, at least, are faithful.”“Faithful to you or to the road?” asked his mother.“To both, I firmly believe,” said Ralph confidently. “Why, I can’t understand any responsible employee going out for so little cause. Hopkins has made them all sore, it is true. But they can’t give that as a good reason. And the cut in wages was only threatened. The Brotherhoods took their cut months ago, even if it was a bitter pill to swallow. It is mainly such men as McCarrey who really are not even railroad men. Why, he never had a job on the Great Northern, as I understand.”“Do you actually believe that he followed Mr. Hopkins here to make trouble?”“I bet he did. But it is Hopkins’ own fault if he gives McCarrey a chance to make trouble.” Mrs. Fairbanks sighed. “I am sorry for his family. You say his daughter is an attractive girl, Ralph?”“That’s the surest thing you know, Mother,” declared Ralph, smiling reflectively. “I had her on the wire last evening when I sent word to her father that the shopmen had gone out. She has a sweet voice.”His mother looked at him again in some doubt.“I never knew you to be so greatly interested in a girl before, Ralph.”“I never knew a girl before who was so worth while,” he replied. “And there’s no nonsense about her. You’ll like her when you know her, Mother.”
The heavy freight train broke in two. The locomotive plowed on for a few rods, and stopped. The switcher which Ralph Fairbanks was driving stopped just opposite the wreck.
One glance was all that was necessary to show Ralph the cause of the disaster. The four heavily laden gondolas had been allowed to run a few feet too far. The corner of the gondola at the end stuck out over the curve of the switch and the first box car on Number Twenty-eight had caught upon its steel corner.
This corner had ripped the sides of two box cars open; then the ruined cars had crashed over onto the other main track. Two following cars had jumped the rails and——
“A four hour job for the wrecking crew, aside from the damage done,” declared Ralph to Nagle, when he came running up with Dooley, the yardmaster. “Where is the brakie you sent to guard that tail-end, Nagle?”
“The rascal!” yelled the conductor. “He’s taken it on the run. We haven’t had him on the line but a few weeks. It is my opinion there are a lot of wabblies got jobs on this division just for the chance of hurting the road.”
“I’ll fix ’em if I catch ’em!” yelled Dooley, almost frothing at the mouth he was so wild.
The whistle was blowing the signal for the wrecking crew. All that Ralph could do was to go on with his task. As it happened, the wreck would not interfere with getting Number Eighty-seven out of the yard.
He picked up one bunch after another of the cars numbered on his list, while the derrick was being brought up to clear the tracks and jack the unhorsed cars upon the rails again. Ralph knew that his assistant would be much troubled by this break in the schedule; but there were certain routine things to do about it, and that was all. Trains would have to be held outside in both directions until the main tracks in the yard were cleared.
Not more than twenty minutes late the young fellow saw the big mogul backed down to the long string of cars and coupled on. The switcher was steaming on a side track, waiting for the next job. Eighty-seven pulled out of the yard safely and soon its parting hoot-too-hoot! could be heard beyond the hill.
“Now what?” asked Ralph, as Dooley came along with another clip of papers in his hand.
So much had been going on during the last few minutes that he had quite forgotten his own schedule. The excited Dooley was about to pass him up his list for the next freight when a tall figure came striding across the tracks from the vicinity of the wreck.
“Cheese it!” gasped the fireman. “Here comes the Great-I-Am.”
Mr. Barton Hopkins showed in his face about as much expression as Ralph had ever seen him display. And that expression was one of anger.
“What is going on here, Yardmaster?” he demanded harshly. “Are you ready with your report on that accident yonder?”
“I don’t know much about it,” said the boss doubtfully. “I didn’t see it. Mebbe Mr. Fairbanks, here——”
This was shifting the responsibility in good truth. At another time Ralph might have been angry at Dooley. But he knew that the old man was much perturbed. Mr. Hopkins turned his scowling visage on the young train dispatcher.
“What is Mr. Fairbanks doing on that switch engine?” asked the supervisor. “I understand that he was at fault in this accident. He kicked the pig-iron cars too far over the switch.”
“Look here, Mr. Hopkins!” exclaimed Ralph, leaning from the window of the little cabin in sudden heat. “Who told you any such thing as that?”
“I am so informed. My informant will doubtless appear at the proper time—when the case is thrashed out in my office.”
“I’ll have some testimony to bring in, too, at that,” said Ralph hotly. “Only I doubt right here and now, Mr. Hopkins, your power to take me into your office. I am train dispatcher of this division——”
“Stick to your job, then,” put in Mr. Hopkins sharply. “I ask you: What are you doing on that switch engine?”
Ralph came down from the deck on the run. He tore off the overalls. His face blazed. He had to wait a moment to control his voice he was so angry.
“If you think I have stepped in here where I have no business, believe me, I can get out,” he said. “I had no idea of turning in a time card for what I was doing. I helped out because I wanted to see things move. Dooley——”
“Mr. Dooley much overstepped his authority when he allowed you to drive that switcher. He knew it—and knows it, now.”
“What in thunder would I have done, Mr. Hopkins?” broke in the excited yardmaster. “Not a man on the list could I call——”
“It was a matter to put up to your superior.”
“Well, now!” roared the angry old man, “where wasyouwhen I needed to start things going after that danged striker hopped his job? Should I sit down and let the yard go stale and all this freight hang fire while I waited to consult you, Mr. Hopkins?”
“That is exactly what you should have done,” declared the supervisor in the same decisive way.
“Great Grief and Jumping Dromedaries!” yelled Dooley, and he literally went up into the air. “It is no wonder the men are striking. I don’t blame ’em! I am on strike myself from this moment——”
He threw the clip of papers into the air, and it went hurtling over the nearest line of boxcars. His cap he snatched from his head and flung it yards away in the other direction. The man was for the moment mad!
“I’m on strike! I’m on strike meself!” he bawled. “Me, that’s never gone out with the boys no matter what happened, for the last thutty years. I’m on strike!”
“You are mistaken, Dooley,” cut in the icy voice of the supervisor. “You have not struck. You are discharged. Hand in your time and go. You are discharged for insubordination and inefficiency. I’ll take your keys.”
“Well,” said Ralph, talking it over later with his assistant operator as they were trying to untangle the trains in the yard and those waiting on the near-by blocks, “we must hand it to supervisor Barton Hopkins. He is personally efficient. He found a day man to take poor Dooley’s place, he got a man for the switcher, and he dressed down the whole yard crew and set them to work again in an hour.”
“But how long are they going to work?” grumbled the operator. “They all act like whipped dogs. That isn’t the way to run a division.”
“It is his way of running it. And the G.M. says he is suiting the stockholders and directors right down to the ground. Oh, the railroad business is on the toboggan!”
“Ha ha!” croaked the operator. “You sound like these other old stagers. I haven’t been in the game so long as you have, Fairbanks, although I am older than you. The pay is good and the hours not bad. Believe me! I’ve had worse jobs than train dispatching.”
“Oh, so have I. But I feel at a time like this that I’d like to be into the game right, instead of sitting up here overlooking a railroad yard and making pin-pricks on a road map.”
“Going back to the locomotive lever?”
“Do you know,” said Ralph earnestly and softly, “while I was fiddling down there on that little old yard engine, I feltright. I wouldn’t want my mother to know it, for she always worried when I had a run, but I believe I was born for the throttle. I’m an engineer, and I always will be.”
The morning paper was full of the strike of the shopmen, and the threat was made by McCarrey that the yardmen and switchers would be out within twenty-four hours.
“We’re going to stop every wheel from turning on this division of the Great Northern,” the strike leader told the reporters. “And before we are through, we’ll plug both ends of the system so tight that the officials will have to come to our terms.”
“How about the Brotherhoods?” he was asked.
“That is bunk,” McCarrey declared. “The Brotherhood members are practically all with us. They don’t have to strike. We are going to strike for them. The roads can’t run trains if they have no shop workers or maintenance of way men. The engineers and firemen won’t take out trains after a while when they can’t get repairs made or road work kept up or switching done. No, sir, we’ve got ’em where we want ’em. Watch us.”
“I guess they ought to be watched, all right,” Ralph told his mother at his late breakfast. “I wonder what Zeph is doing? I wonder where Mr. Adair is?”
“I should think you wouldn’t worry about them,” said the widow. “They have their own work. You have yours, Ralph. Please don’t get mixed up in this ugly business.”
“I guess you are quite right, Mother,” he said gravely. “I am glad to be in the train dispatching department. Of course, we are going to have a great deal of trouble putting any schedule through. But I do not believe the telegraphers will go on strike. My men, at least, are faithful.”
“Faithful to you or to the road?” asked his mother.
“To both, I firmly believe,” said Ralph confidently. “Why, I can’t understand any responsible employee going out for so little cause. Hopkins has made them all sore, it is true. But they can’t give that as a good reason. And the cut in wages was only threatened. The Brotherhoods took their cut months ago, even if it was a bitter pill to swallow. It is mainly such men as McCarrey who really are not even railroad men. Why, he never had a job on the Great Northern, as I understand.”
“Do you actually believe that he followed Mr. Hopkins here to make trouble?”
“I bet he did. But it is Hopkins’ own fault if he gives McCarrey a chance to make trouble.” Mrs. Fairbanks sighed. “I am sorry for his family. You say his daughter is an attractive girl, Ralph?”
“That’s the surest thing you know, Mother,” declared Ralph, smiling reflectively. “I had her on the wire last evening when I sent word to her father that the shopmen had gone out. She has a sweet voice.”
His mother looked at him again in some doubt.
“I never knew you to be so greatly interested in a girl before, Ralph.”
“I never knew a girl before who was so worth while,” he replied. “And there’s no nonsense about her. You’ll like her when you know her, Mother.”