114CHAPTER XIIITHE “BLACK HAND”
Lemuel Fogg’s opponents scrambled to their feet and sneaked off immediately. The fireman turned his back upon them, and strode down the sidewalk in the direction of the Fairbanks’ home with a stormy and disturbed expression on his face.
“Trouble, Mr. Fogg?” intimated the young railroader, as the fireman approached him.
“No,” dissented Fogg vigorously, “the end of trouble. I’m sorry to lose my temper, lad, but those ruffians were the limit. They know my sentiments now.”
“They were Hall and Wilson, I noticed,” suggested Ralph.
“Yes,” returned the fireman, “and two worse unhung rascals never walked. They came about you. Say, Mr. Fairbanks,” continued Fogg excitedly, “It wasn’t so bad tackling me as a sort of comrade, considering that I had been foolish enough to train with them once, but when they mentioned115you—I went wild. You—after what you’ve done for me and mine! Say––”
“Hold on—close the brakes,” ordered Ralph, as his companion seemed inclined to run after his recent adversaries and seek them out for a further castigation. “You’ve made the brake with them—forget them.”
“They had a new plot to get a black mark against you,” went on the fireman. “I heard them half through their plans. Then I sailed into them.”
“Well, breakfast is ready,” said Ralph, “and after that, work, so we’d better get down to schedule.”
The run to which No. 999 had been apportioned covered the Muddy Creek branch of the Great Northern to Riverton. The train was an accommodation and ran sixty miles. It was to leave Stanley Junction at 9:15 A. M., arrive at terminus at about noon, and start back for the Junction at two o’clock.
Ralph left the house about eight o’clock, after arranging to meet his fireman at the roundhouse. He went to the hotel to see Archie Graham, and found that youthful genius in his room figuring out some mathematical problem at a table.
“Well, how are you this morning?” inquired Ralph cheerily.116
“First-rate, except that I’m a trifle sleepy,” replied the young inventor. “Say, I was riding under the coaches all night long. It was dream after dream. I believe it tired me out more than the real thing.”
“You haven’t got your new clothes yet, I see,” observed Ralph, with a glance at the tattered attire of his new acquaintance.
“They are ordered,” explained Archie, “but they won’t be here until late this afternoon.”
“When they do,” said Ralph, taking a card from his pocket and writing a few lines on it, “if you don’t want to wait till I have some leisure, take this to Mr. Forgan, down at the roundhouse.”
“Thank you,” said Archie.
“He’ll extend all the civilities to you. I hope you may discover something of advantage.”
“I’ll try,” promised Archie.
Seeing the young inventor, reminded Ralph of Bridgeport, and naturally he thought of the boy he had known as Marvin Clark.
“He telegraphed that he would see me,” ruminated Ralph. “I shall miss him if he comes to Stanley Junction to-day, but he will probably wait around for me—that is, if he comes at all. If he doesn’t, in a day or two I shall start some kind of an investigation as to this strange case of double identity.”117
When Ralph got to the roundhouse he found Fogg in the doghouse chatting with his friends. He had to tell the story of the fire over and over again, it seemed, at each new arrival of an interested comrade, and Ralph’s heroic share in the incident was fully exploited. The young railroader was overwhelmed by his loyal admirers with congratulations. Ralph felt glad to compare the anticipated trip with the starting out on the first record run of No. 999, when he had a half-mad sullen fireman for a helper.
As the wiper finished his work on the locomotive, engineer and fireman got into the cab.
“Hello!” exclaimed Fogg sharply.
“Hello!” echoed his cabmate.
A little square strip of paper was revealed to both, as they opened their bunkers. It was patent that some one had sneaked into the roundhouse and had pasted the papers there. Each slip bore a crude outline of a human hand, drawn in pencil.
“Bah!” spoke Fogg, with a brush of a chisel scraping the portraiture on his own box out of all semblance, and then doing the same with the picture on the reverse cover of Ralph’s bunker.
“What is it, Fogg?” inquired the young railroader, to whom the ominous sketches were a new wrinkle.
“Black Hand,” explained Fogg.118
“Whose—why?” inquired Ralph.
“The outcast gang. It’s one of their scare tricks. Humph! I’d like to get sight of the fellow who thought he was doing a smart trick. The Black Hands are supposed to warn us that we’re doomed by the gang, see? It’s a notification that the trouncing I gave those fellows Hall and Wilson is a declaration of war to the knife.”
“Well, let it come. Aren’t we equal to it, Mr. Fogg?”
“You are, for they can’t hit you hard. You’ve made your mark,” said the fireman, somewhat gloomily. “I’m not in the same class. I’ve had my weak spots. Besides, it’s me they’ll be after. Dunno, Fairbanks, maybe I’d better not be the cause of getting you into any more trouble. Perhaps I’d better slide for a bit into some switchyard job.”
“What—scared?” cried Ralph.
“No, not scared,” responded Fogg soberly, “only worried about you.”
“Well,” said Ralph, “the master mechanic said we were a strong team?”
“Ye-es.”
“Let’s prove to him that we are. Good-by to the Black Hands, Mr. Fogg, they aren’t worth thinking about.”
So the young railroader rallied and cheered his119comrade, and they had got beyond the turn table and had quite forgotten the incident of the pasters, when John Griscom mounted the cab step. He nodded genially to both Ralph and the fireman. Griscom knew pretty much what was going on most of the time, and the master mechanic was a close friend of his.
“Just a word, Fairbanks,” he began in a confidential tone, and the young engineer bent over towards him. “I don’t want to be croaking all the time, but railroading isn’t all fun and frolic.”
“What’s the matter now, Mr. Griscom?” inquired Ralph.
“The old strike gang is the trouble, and will be until they’re laid out, ragtail and bobtail, dead cold. I have a friend in a certain department of the service here. He isn’t giving away official business any, but he isn’t in sympathy with Hall or Wilson. One of them sent a wire to Riverton an hour since. It was to some one the operator never heard of before, evidently a friend of theirs. It mentioned 999, your name, and Fogg. The rest of it was in cipher.”
“We’ve just had a Black Hand warning, here in the cab,” said Ralph.
“Oh, you have?” muttered Griscom. “Then there’s new mischief afoot. Look out for snags at Riverton.”120
Ralph realized that it wasn’t very pleasant working under the continual menace of enemies plotting in the dark and in a mean, desperate way. There was nothing for it, however, but to exercise patience, vigilance and courage.
“They shall never drive me from my post of duty,” firmly decided the young railroader. “I shall neither tire out nor scare out.”
Riverton was made on time and with no unpleasant incident to mar a schedule trip. No. 999 was run to a siding, and Ralph and Fogg had over two hours on their hands to spend as they chose. They had brought their lunch, and they dispatched the best part of it in the cab. Mrs. Fairbanks had put it up in a basket, and a two-quart fruit jar held the cold coffee. After the repast Fogg fixed the fire and they strolled down to the depot.
The station agent was an old acquaintance of Ralph. He knew Van Sherwin, Limpy Joe and the people up at the Short Line railroad, kept posted on their progress pretty closely, and he had a good deal of interesting railroad gossip to retail to Ralph.
“Oh, by the way,” he observed incidentally, after they had conversed for some time, “there was a spruce young fellow here this morning asking very particularly about 999 and her movements. He mentioned your name too.”121
“Who was he?” inquired Ralph.
“I never saw him before. He was curious all about your run, hung around a while and then disappeared. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Describe him, won’t you?” and the station agent did so. Ralph was sure that the stranger was the youth he had known as Marvin Clark. From that time on until the train got ready for the return trip, the young railroader kept his eyes open for a glimpse of his acquaintance with the double identity. The latter, however, up to the time No. 999 steamed out from Riverton, did not put in an appearance.
“Well, nobody tackled us at Riverton,” observed Ralph, as he and Fogg settled down comfortably to their respective tasks.
“Better not,” retorted the fireman keenly. “I just made a little purchase this morning, and I’m going to stand no fooling,” and he touched his hip pocket meaningly. “Have a swig?” he inquired additionally, as he reached for the jar of coffee and took a drink.
“Oh, I could feast on my mother’s coffee all day,” observed Ralph as the jar was passed to him. “Now, then, you finish it up and hand me one of those doughnuts.”
The little refection seemed to add to the satisfaction of the moment. Their run was a slow122one, and there was little to do besides keeping the machinery in motion. The day was warm, but the air was balmy. The landscape was interesting, and they seemed gliding along as in a pleasing dream.
Later, when he analyzed his sensations, the young railroader, recalling just these impressions, knew that they were caused by artificial conditions. Ralph relapsed into a dream—indeed, he was amazed, he was startled to find himself opening his eyes with difficulty, and of discovering his fireman doubled up in his seat, fast asleep. He tried to shout to Fogg, realizing that something was wrong. He could not utter a word, his tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth. Ralph barely managed to slip to his feet in an effort to arouse his cab mate.
“Something wrong!” ran through his mind. A vague thrill crossed his frame as, whirling by a landmark, a white-painted cattle guard, he realized that he must have gone five miles without noting distance.
The bridge was his next thought. Muddy Creek was less than a mile ahead. If the draw should be open! Wildly reaching towards the lever, the young engineer sank to the floor a senseless heap, while No. 999, without a guide, dashed down the shining rails!
123CHAPTER XIVA SERIOUS PLOT
“Who stopped this train—and why?”
Dreamily returning to consciousness, these were the first words that reached Ralph Fairbanks’ rallying consciousness. They were spoken by the conductor of the accommodation train sharply. The locomotive was at a standstill, and, staring wonderingly, the conductor stood by the side of the tender.
“I did,” answered a prompt voice, and removing his hand from the lever, the boy whom the young engineer had known as Marvin Clark drifted before his vision.
“Hello!” exclaimed the conductor, “I’ve seen you before. You’re the fellow who caught the train at Riverton just as she left—had a free pass.”
“Never mind me, Mr. Conductor,” responded the other rapidly. “I’m thinking they need some attention,” and he pointed to the fireman, lying124doubled up in his seat, and then to Ralph, lying prone on the floor of the cab.
“Fairbanks—Fogg!” fairly shouted the conductor. “Why, what can this mean?”
“Foul play, if I’m a judge,” spoke Clark definitely. “Fairbanks! Fairbanks!” he shouted, stooping over and lifting Ralph in his strong arms. “Here, brace him in his seat.”
“Water!” gasped the young engineer in a choking tone. “My throat is on fire! What has happened?”
“Nothing alarming,” answered Clark reassuringly, “only—I’m glad I happened to be here.”
Ralph’s mouth and throat seemed burning up. The water he drank only partially allayed his frantic thirst. It was with great difficulty that he could arouse himself from a lethargy that seemed to completely paralyze both body and mind. As the moments passed, however, he succeeded in rallying into something like normal. But as yet he was unable to fully understand just what had happened.
“He needs something to stimulate him,” declared the conductor, and stepping into the cab he hastily ransacked the fireman’s bunker. “Aha!”
His tones announced a discovery—likewise a125suspicion. He had unearthed two flasks of liquor, one only partly filled.
“Not for me,” said Ralph, waving back the conductor, who evidently was intent on administering a stimulant. “Liquor!” he cried, suddenly bracing up now. “Fogg never brought it aboard. It’s some plot! Why!” he exclaimed, in sudden enlightenment, “I see it all, clear as day.”
What Ralph saw, all hands in the cab soon realized within the ensuing ten minutes. When they had aroused Fogg, there followed animated theory, discovery and conviction. Not one of them doubted but that some enemy had sneaked aboard of the locomotive while it was sidetracked at noon at Riverton and had put some drug in the jar of coffee. They found a suspicious dark sediment at the bottom of the jar.
“Black Hands—mark it down,” observed Fogg. “Whoever did it, also placed those flasks of liquor in my bunker. See the label on them? They come from a place in Riverton I never was in. The scoundrels aimed to have us found in the cab, just as we have been, and a report go in that the heat and too much liquor had crippled us from making the run.”
“You’ve struck it, Fogg,” assented the conductor. “Just stow that jar and those two flasks in a safe place. I’ll have our special agent Adair,126the road detective, find out who bought that liquor. No need of any blabbing to the general public. Are you able to complete the run, Fairbanks?”
“Certainly,” reported Ralph, exercising arms and feet vigorously to restore their circulation. Fogg was still dazed and weak. He had drunk more of the coffee than Ralph. Besides, being the older of the two, he did not shake off the effects of the narcotic so readily as the young engineer.
“I’ll help fire—I know how to,” declared Clark.
“You know how to stop an engine, too!” commented the conductor. “All right, Fairbanks, when you’re ready,” and he returned to the coaches. Ralph extended his hand to Clark. The latter met his glance frankly.
“I’ve been trying to get track of your movements by telegraph,” said Clark. “Located your run, and was waiting at Riverton for your train. Got there ahead of time, and came back to the depot just as 999 was pulling out, and caught the last car. First, I thought I’d not show myself until you got through with your trip. Things got dull in those humdrum coaches, though, and I sailed ahead to the tender, saw what was wrong, and checked up the locomotive just beyond the bridge. Say, if the draw had been open, we’d all have had a bath, eh?”127
“The miscreants who played this diabolical trick ought to be severely punished,” said Ralph.
There was no evidence of strained relations between the two boys. Ralph recognized that Clark had sought him out to make an explanation. He wondered what it would be. The present was not, however, the time to broach the subject. There was something very manly and reassuring in Clark’s manner, and the young railroader believed that when he got ready to disclose his secret, the revelation would be an unusual and interesting one.
The train was started up, soon made up the lost time, and at 5:15 rolled into the depot at Stanley Junction. Ralph did not feel quite as well as usual and his fireman was pale and loggy, but the main effects of the drug had passed off.
“You go straight home, Mr. Fogg,” directed Ralph. “I will see that 999 is put to bed all right.”
“I think I’ll take advantage of your kind offer, Fairbanks,” responded Fogg. “I’m weak as a cat, and my head is going around like an electric turntable.”
Fogg started for home. Clark rode with Ralph on the locomotive to the roundhouse. The big engine was put into her stall. Then the boys left the place.128
“I have something to say to you, Fairbanks,” began Clark.
“I suppose so,” replied Ralph. “It must be quite a long story, though.”
“It is,” admitted his companion.
“Then suppose we leave its recital till we are rested a bit,” suggested Ralph. “I want you to come up to the house and have supper. Then we’ll adjourn to the garden and have a quiet, comfortable chat.”
“That will be famous,” declared Clark. “Say, you don’t treat an imposter like myself courteous or anything, do you?”
“Are you really an imposter?” asked Ralph, with a faint smile.
“I am—and a rank one.”
“Just one question—you are not the real Marvin Clark?”
“No more than yourself.”
“And you are Fred Porter?”
“That’s it.”
“I thought so,” said the young engineer.
129CHAPTER XV“THE SILVANDOS”
“I declare!” exclaimed Ralph Fairbanks.
“For mercy’s sake!” echoed Fred Porter.
Both stood spellbound just within the grounds of the Fairbanks’ home, where they had arrived. Over towards the dividing lot line of the next door neighbor, their eyes had lit upon an unusual and interesting scene.
Two figures were in action among the branches of the great oak tree. They were boys, and their natural appearance was enough to attract attention. They were leaping, springing, chasing one another from branch to branch, with a remarkable agility that made one think of monkeys and next trained athletes.
“Who are they, anyway?” demanded Fred.
“They are new to me,” confessed the young engineer.
The two strangers were about of an age, under sixteen. It would puzzle one to figure out their130nationality. Their faces were tawny, but delicate of profile, their forms exquisitely molded. They suggested Japanese boys. Then Ralph decided they more resembled lithe Malay children of whom he had seen photographs. At all events, they were natural tree climbers. They made the most daring leaps from frail branches. They sprung from twigs that broke in their deft grasp, but not until they had secured the purchase they aimed at in the act to send them flying through the air to some other perilous point in view. Their feats were fairly bewildering, and as one landed on the ground like a rubber ball and the other chased him out of sight in the next yard, Ralph conducted his companion into the house with these words:
“That’s odd enough to investigate.”
He did not announce his arrival to his mother, but led Fred up to his room. As he passed that now occupied by the Foggs, it made his heart glad to hear the fireman crowing at the baby to the accompaniment of a happy laugh from the fireman’s wife.
“You can wash up and tidy up, Porter,” he said to his friend. “I’ll arrange for an extra plate, and take you down later to meet the best mother in the world.”
“This is an imposition on you good people,” declared Fred, but Ralph would not listen to him.131He went downstairs and out the front way, and came around the house looking all about for some trace of the two remarkable creatures he had just seen. They had disappeared, however, as if they were veritable wood elves. Passing the kitchen window, the young engineer halted.
“Hello!” he uttered. “Zeph Dallas is back again,” and then he listened casually, for Zeph was speaking to his mother.
“Yes, Mrs. Fairbanks,” Ralph caught the words, “I’m the bad penny that turns up regularly, only I’ve got some good dollars this time. On the mantel is the money I owe Ralph for the clothes he got me.”
“But can you spare the money?” spoke Mrs. Fairbanks.
“Sure I can, and the back board, too,” declared Zeph, and glancing in through the open window Ralph noted the speaker, his fingers in his vest armholes, strutting around most grandly.
“I can’t understand how you came to get so much money in two days,” spoke the lady. “You couldn’t have earned it in that short space of time, Zeph.”
“No, ma’am,” admitted Zeph, “but I’ve got it, haven’t I? It’s honest money, Mrs. Fairbanks. It’s an advance on my wages—expense money and such, don’t you see?”132
“Then you have secured work, Zeph?”
“Steady work, Mrs. Fairbanks.”
“What at, Zeph?”
“Mrs. Fairbanks,” answered the lad in a hushed, mysterious tone of voice, “I am hired as a detective.”
“You’re what?” fairly shouted Ralph through the window.
“Hello! you here, are you?” cried Zeph, and in a twinkling he had joined Ralph outside the house. “Yes, sir,” he added, with an important air that somewhat amused Ralph, “I’ve landed this time. On both feet. Heart’s desire at last—I’m a detective.”
Ralph had to smile. He recalled the first arrival of honest but blundering Zeph Dallas at Stanley Junction, a raw country bumpkin. Even then the incipient detective fever had been manifested by the crude farmer boy. From the confident, self-assured tone in which Zeph now spoke, the young railroader was forced to believe that he had struck something tangible at last in his favorite line.
“What are you detecting, Zeph?” he inquired.
“That’s a secret.”
“Indeed—and what agency are you working for—the government?”
“That,” observed Zeph gravely, “is also a secret—for133the present. See here, Ralph Fairbanks, you’re guying me. You needn’t. Look at that.”
With great pride Zeph threw back his coat. It was to reveal a star pinned to his vest.
“Yes,” nodded Ralph, “I see it, but it doesn’t tell who you are.”
“Don’t it say ‘Special’?” demanded Zeph, with an offended air.
“Yes, I see the word.”
“Well, then, that’s me—special secret service, see? Of course, I don’t look much like a detective, just common and ordinary now, but I’m going to buy a wig and a false beard, and then you’ll see.”
“Oh, Zeph!” exclaimed Ralph.
“All right, you keep right on laughing at me,” said Zeph. “All the same, I’m hired. What’s more, I’m paid. Look at that—I’ve got the job and I’ve got the goods. That shows something, I fancy,” and Zeph waved a really imposing roll of bank notes before the sight of the young engineer.
“Your employers must think you a pretty good man to pay you in advance,” suggested Ralph.
“They do, for a fact,” declared Zeph. “They know they can depend upon me. Say, Ralph, it’s funny the way I fell into the job. You never in your life heard of the slick and easy way I seemed134to go rolling right against it. And the mystery, the deadly secrets, the—the—hold on, though, I’m violating the eth—eth—yes, ethics of the profession.”
“No, no—go on and tell us something about it,” urged Ralph. “I’m interested.”
“Can’t. I’ve gone too far already. Sworn to secrecy. Honestly, I’m not romancing, Ralph, I’m working on a case that reads like a story book. Some of the strange things going on—they fairly stagger me. I can’t say another word just now, but just the minute I can, you just bet I’ll tell you all about it, Ralph Fairbanks. Say, you haven’t seen two boys around here, have you—two tiny fellows? I left them in the garden here. They’re in my charge, and I mustn’t lose sight of them,” and Zeph began looking all around the place.
“Two human monkeys, who make no more of flying through the air than you or I do to run a race?” inquired Ralph.
“That’s them,” assented Zeph.
“They were here a few minutes ago,” advised Ralph, “but I don’t see them just now. I wondered who they were. The last I saw of them, they were chasing one another over our neighbors’ lot over there.”
“I must find them,” said Zeph. “They are another of my responsibilities. I hear them.”135
As Zeph spoke, there proceeded from the alley a mellow and peculiar but very resonant whistle. It was followed by a responsive whistle, clear as a calliope note. Then into view dashed the two boys for whom Zeph was looking. They were still chasing one another, and the foremost of the twain was making for the house. As he passed a tree full tilt, without the least apparent exertion he leaped up lightly, seized a branch, coiled around it like a rubber band, and his pursuer passed under him at full speed.
“This way, Kara—hey, Karo,” called out Zeph, and the two strange lads came up to him with a fawn-like docility, in keeping with the mild, timid expression of their faces.
“Sare,” spoke one of them with a bow, and his companion repeated the word. They both bowed to Ralph next, and stood like obedient children awaiting orders. Ralph was silent for fully a minute, studying their unfamiliar make-up. At that moment Fred Porter, having come down stairs the front way, strolled around the corner of the house.
“This is my friend, Fred Porter—Zeph—Zeph Dallas, Porter,” introduced the young railroader, and the two boys shook hands. Porter became instantly interested in the two strange lads.136
“I’m going to show you fellows something,” said Zeph, “something mighty remarkable, something you never saw before, and it’s going to beat anything you ever heard of. About those two boys. Kara!”
One of the two lads instantly moved to the side of Zeph, who beckoned to him to follow him. He led the boy ten feet away behind a thick large bush, his back to the others.
“Karo,” he spoke again, and the other boy allowed him to turn him around where he stood, his back to the other boy.
“See here, Zeph,” spoke Ralph with a broad smile, “are you going to give us a detective demonstration of some kind, or a sleight-of-hand demonstration?”
“Quit guying me, Ralph Fairbanks,” said Zeph. “You’re always at it, but I’m going to give you something this time that will make you sit up and take notice, I’ll bet. Those boys came from a good many thousand miles away—from the other side of the world, in fact.”
“They look it,” observed Fred Porter.
“Gomera,” exclaimed Zeph.
“Where’s that now?” inquired Fred.
“It is the smallest of the Canary Islands.”
“Oh, that’s it!”137
“And they talk without saying a word,” was Zeph’s next amazing announcement.
“Whew!” commented Fred dubiously.
“They do. It’s that I’m going to show you. Perhaps those boys are the only two of their kind in the United States. They are Silvandos.”
“What are Silvandos, Zeph?” inquired Ralph.
“Silvandos,” replied Zeph, with manifest enjoyment of the fact that he was making a new and mystifying disclosure, “are persons who carry on a conversation through a whistling language.”
138CHAPTER XVIZEPH DALLAS AND HIS “MYSTERY”
“Whistling language?” repeated Fred Porter. “Is there one?”
“Aha! didn’t I say I was going to show you something you never heard of before? You bet there is a whistling language!” chuckled Zeph—“and I’m now about to demonstrate it to you. You see these two boys? Well, they are natives of Gomera, the smallest of the Canary Islands. They were raised in a district where at times there is no living thing within sight, and the vast wilderness in the winding mountains is broken only by the crimson flower of the cactus growing in the clifts of the rock.”
“You talk like a literary showman, Zeph Dallas,” declared Fred.
“Well, I’m telling the story as I get it, ain’t I?” demanded Zeph in an injured tone and with a sharp look at Fred, as if he suspected that he was being guyed. “Anyhow, I want to explain things so you’ll understand.”139
“Go right ahead, Zeph,” insisted Ralph encouragingly, “we’re interested.”
“Well, up among those big stone terraces is the whistling race. They are able to converse with one another at a distance of three miles.”
“That’s pretty strong,” observed Fred. “But make it three miles.”
“A Silvando will signal a friend he knows to be in a certain distant locality. He does it by setting his fore fingers together at a right angle in his mouth, just as you’ll see these two Canaries do in a minute or two. An arrow of piercing sounds shoots across the ravine.”
“Arrow is good—shoots is good!” whispered Fred, nudging Ralph.
“There is a moment’s pause—” continued Zeph.
“Oh, he’s read all this in some book!” declared Fred.
“Then there comes a thin almost uncanny whistle from far away. Conversation begins, and as the sounds rise and fall, are shrill or drawn, so they are echoed. Then comes the ghostly reply, and then question and answer follows. They talk—all right. Travelers say so, and a lot of scientific fellows are now on the track of this strange tribe to investigate them before civilization makes of their talk a dead language.140Kara—ready!” called out Zeph to the boy at the bush. “Karo—attention!”
“Sare,” answered the little fellow, his bright twinkling eyes full of intelligence.
“Ask him how many!” said Zeph “—see?” and he touched himself, the boy and Ralph and Fred with his forefinger in turn.
Out rang a series of rising interrogatory sounds. There was a pause. Then from the boy stationed at the bush came quick responsive toots—one, two, three, four.
“Tell Kara to bring you this—see, this?” and Zeph stooped down and touched the sodded yard with his hand. Karo whistled again. Immediately Kara wheeled, stooped also, and was at their side in an instant, tendering a handful of grass.
“Say, this is odd all right,” confessed Fred thoughtfully.
“Tell Kara to climb a tree next,” spoke Zeph. More “whistle talk,” and agile as a monkey Kara was aloft, making dizzying whirls among the branches of an oak nearby. “I tell you, it would stun you to watch these little fellows at play. It’s like a piccolo or a calliope to hear them talk—yes, sir, talking just as knowingly as we do.”
“Who are they, anyway?” spoke Fred curiously?
“I’ve told you—Canaries.”141
“Yes, but where did you pick them up?”
“That’s a secret. You see,” responded Zeph, looking duly wise and mysterious, “those boys were imported to this country by a peculiar old man, who wanted servants around him who weren’t gabbing about his affairs and asking him questions all the time. Well, he’s got them, hasn’t he? I’m working for that man, or rather for a friend of his. Detective work,” continued Zeph, rather proudly. “I’ve told Ralph. These two boys have been shut up in the house for two months. They just pined for fresh air, and trees—oh! trees are their stronghold. When I started out with them they made for the first tree like birds for a roost. I have taken them out for an airing, and I ran down here to report to Ralph how I was getting on, and brought them along with me for the novelty of the thing.”
“Do they live near here?” inquired Ralph.
“No,” answered Zeph, “we had to come by rail. I can’t tell you where they live, but it’s on a branch of the Great Northern. I’ve got to get back to-night. We’ve had our supper, Ralph. I just wanted to settle up the bills I owed you. I’ll say good-bye to your mother and get to the depot.”
Zeph and his charges trooped to the kitchen door. Zeph spoke a few words to Mrs. Fairbanks.142His companions bowed her a polite and graceful adieu, and Ralph accompanied their former boarder to the street.
“See here, Ralph,” said Zeph to the young engineer in parting, “I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t tell you everything.”
“That’s all right, Zeph.”
“But honestly, I’ve solemnly agreed not to lisp a word about what I am really about or the people concerned in it.”
“That’s all right, too,” declared Ralph.
“I’ll say this, though,” resumed Zeph: “I’m working on a strange and serious case. It’s no play or fooling. I’m getting big pay. I may do a big thing in the end, and when I do, if I do, I’m coming straight to tell you all about it.”
Ralph watched Zeph and his charges disappear down the street with a great deal of curiosity and wonderment in his mind. A great many lively and unusual incidents were coming to the front recently, but this one was certainly enough out of the ordinary to give him food for profound thought.
Ralph rejoined Fred in the garden, and took him into the house and introduced him to his mother. Mrs. Fairbanks won the heart of the manly young fellow, as she did the love of all of her son’s friends.143
It was a pleasant, happy little coterie, that which sat down at the table soon afterwards to enjoy one of Mrs. Fairbanks’ famous meals.
“I’m ashamed!” declared Fred, after his seventh hot biscuit with freshly churned butter that made his mouth water, “but eating houses and hotels, Mrs. Fairbanks, make a roving, homeless fellow like me desperate, and if a third helping of that exquisite apple sauce isn’t out of order, I’ll have another small fish.”
“I’m spoiled for regular cooking, Bessie,” declared Fogg to his wife. “Mrs. Fairbanks is fattening us till we’ll be of no use at all.”
“You are all flatterers,” said Mrs. Fairbanks warningly, but with a pleased smile.
“I’ll take another piece of cake, ma’am, providing you’ll promise me the little exercise of helping you wash the dishes afterwards,” spoke Fred.
He interested the widow with his animated, interested talk as he bustled around the kitchen, wearing a big apron while drying the dishes. Then when this task was completed, he and Ralph went out to the little summer house and comfortably seated themselves.
“Now then,” remarked the young railroader with a pleasant smile, “now for your confession, Fred.”144
“No, sir,” objected his comrade vociferously, “I’ve done nothing that’s wrong to confess. It will be an explanation.”
“All right,” agreed Ralph, “open the throttle and start the train.”
At that moment there was an interruption. A chubby, undersized boy came swiftly through the gateway. He was advancing up the steps of the house when Ralph halted him.
“Hi, there, Davis!” he challenged. “What’s wanted?”
“Oh, you there, Fairbanks!” responded Ned Davis, the red-headed call boy for the roundhouse of the Great Northern, familiarly known as “Torchy.” “Extra orders for you and Fogg—you’re to take out a special to-night.”
145CHAPTER XVIIIN WIDENER’S GAP
There was always a spice of novelty and excitement for the young engineer in running a special. Besides that, extra orders meant pay and a half, sometimes double pay, with twenty-four hours’ rest after it, if the special run came after midnight.
Ralph arose from his seat in the summer-house, telling Ned Davis that Fogg and himself would report at the roundhouse at once.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Porter,” he said to his guest. “We’ll have to postpone our talk until to-morrow.”
“Duty call, I see,” returned Fred. “Well, there’s no urgency, now that I’ve found out you don’t consider me some hideous impostor of the old story book kind. I’ll go as far with you as a hotel, and tell you what I have to say after this trip.”
“You’ll camp right here at the Fairbanks cottage146until I return,” peremptorily declared Ralph. “My mother would be lonesome if there wasn’t a boy somewhere about the house. Zeph is gone and my other friends, and you will be good company.”
“I’m only too willing, if it’s entirely agreeable,” said Fred, and so it was settled.
Fogg grumbled a good deal when Ralph told him of the extra call. He declared that he had just succeeded in teaching the baby to say “All aboard!” looked at the sky and predicted the biggest storm of the season, and was cross generally until he climbed aboard No. 999. Then Ralph heard him talking to the well-groomed steel steed as if it was some pet racer, and he anxious and glad to put it through its paces.
“What’s the run, Fairbanks?” asked the fireman, as Ralph returned from the roundhouse office.
“Nothing very interesting. Special sleeper, some convention crowd for Bridgeport, came in on the north branch. We’ve got to pick our way on our own schedule.”
“Huh! thought it must be a treasure train, or the pay car at the least!” snorted Fogg contemptuously, but thoroughly good-natured under the surface.
When they backed down to the depot, Ralph147was handed his flimsy orders. No. 999 was given standard special lights, with the usual markers at the rear of the sleeping car, but no one on platform charge. The coach had a conductor, but he barely showed himself, and went inside, where all the curtains were drawn and passengers evidently gone to sleep.
“I told you it was going to rain,” spoke Fogg, as they cleared the limits and got ready for a spurt. “All schedule cancelled where we can get clear tracks, I suppose? All right, let’s see what 999 can do on slippery rails.”
No. 999 did famously, as she always did under the guidance of the vigilant young engineer. Ralph was learning a good deal lately, and his mind was always strictly on the business of the moment when at the throttle. He was learning that there was a science in running a locomotive a good deal deeper than merely operating throttle, brake and lever automatically. There was a way to conserve the steam energy and reserve wide-open tactics for full pressure that he had found out, which enabled him to spurt when the chance came, at no cost of exhaustion later. He knew the gauges by heart, how to utilize the exhaust, and worked something along the line of the new superheated steam theory.
The night had set in very dark and very stormy.148They had nothing to look out for, however, on the out track except an accommodation that had started two hours previous. No. 999 had a light load, and she sped along without a jar. The wires took care of her. By nine o’clock they were twenty miles “to the good” on regular schedule basis.
After that it was slower progress. The wind had arisen to a hurricane, the rain came down in torrents, and as they passed Winston they began to get in among the hills, where there was a series of intricate and dangerous curves.
“It’s nearly a waterspout,” observed Fogg, as the rain swept against the cab as if driven from a full pressure hose, and they could feel the staunch locomotive quiver as it breasted great sweeps of the wind. “I don’t like that,” he muttered, as a great clump came against the cab curtain. And he and his engineer both knew what it was from past experience.
“One of those young landslides,” spoke Ralph.
“The second in a half-an-hour,” declared Fogg. “It’s clear mud, but sometime in one of these storms we’ll get a big drop of rock, and there’ll be mischief afoot.”
Ralph slowed as they entered a long stretch known as Widener’s Gap. It was a pull up hill. Besides that, Widener was only two miles ahead,149and the curves were so sharp and frequent that they could not catch the semaphore at any distance.
Both engineer and fireman were under an intense strain, and Ralph kept a keen lookout from his cab window. Fogg was doing the same. Suddenly he uttered a great shout. It was echoed by Ralph, for there was cause for excitement.
“A tree!” yelled Fogg.
Ralph set the air and pulled the lever in a flash. What the gleaming headlight of No. 999 had shown, however, they were upon in a leap. They could feel a grinding jar, but the pilot had evidently swept the obstacle aside. They could hear the branches sweep the top of the engine. Then there came a warning sound.
Bumpety-bump,-bump-bump! The tree, uprooted from the gap side by the rain and the wind, had descried half a circle, it seemed, when shifted by the pilot. Its big end had rolled under the coach. From the feeling the young engineer could guess what had happened.
“Shut her off!” shouted Fogg.
“The coach has jumped the track!” echoed Ralph quickly.
His heart was in his mouth as he made every exertion to bring the locomotive to a quick stop.150No. 999 acted splendidly, but it was impossible to slow down under two hundred feet.
“Both trucks off—she’s toppling!” yelled Fogg, with a backward glance.
Each instant Ralph waited for the crash that would announce a catastrophe. It did not come. The coach swayed and careened, pounding the sleepers set on a sharp angle and tugging to part the bumpers. Ralph closed the throttle and took a glance backwards for the first time.
“The coach is safe, Mr. Fogg,” he spoke. “Get back and see how badly the passengers are mixed up.”
“There’s nothing coming behind us?” asked the fireman.
“No, but tell the conductor to set the light back as far as he can run.”
“Allright.”
“The Night Express!” gasped Ralph the next moment, in a hushed whisper, as he caught the faint echo of a signal whistle ahead of them in the distance.
An alarming thought came into his mind. Nothing could menace them ahead on the out track and nothing was due behind, but the coach attached to No. 999 stood on a tilt clear across the in track.
Along those rails in ten minutes’ time, unaware151of the obstruction, the night express would come thundering down the grade at a forty-mile clip around the sharp curves of Widener’s Gap.
“It’s 38. She’s due, entering Widener,” breathed Ralph. “Yes,” with a glance at the cab clock, “and just on time. Mr. Fogg,” he shouted after his fireman, leaping to the ground, “get the people out of that coach—38 is coming.”
“The Night Express,” cried Fogg hoarsely. “I never thought of it.”
Ralph tore one of the rear red tender lights from its place. He started down the out rails on a dead run. His only hope now was of reaching the straight open stretch past the last curve in open view of Widener. To set the warning signal short of that would be of no avail. No. 38 could not possibly see it in time, coming at full speed, to avoid a smash-up.
In a single minute the young engineer was drenched to the skin. It was all that he could do to keep from being blown from his footing. He fairly counted the seconds as he shot forward, sprinting to the limit on that slippery, flooded roadbed. He could not restrain a shout of relief and hope as he turned the last curve.
“Widener—38!” he gasped.
The station lamps were visible, a mile distant. Somewhat nearer, a blur of white radiance amid152the dashing rain, was the headlight of No. 38 showing that she was coming at momentarily increasing speed. Ralph aimed to run nearer to the air line stretch to plant the signal. Suddenly his feet tripped and he went headlong. The breath seemed knocked out of his body as he landed across the ties of the brief trestle reach, which he had forgotten all about in his excitement. The lantern, flung wide from his grasp, struck one rail, smashed to pieces, and the lamp went out as it dropped with a flare into the deep gully beneath.