153CHAPTER XVIIIAT THE SEMAPHORE
THE young engineer of No. 999 struggled to his feet appalled. The case seemed hopeless. He had matches in his pocket. In dry weather under the same circumstances he might to gather up enough dry grass and brush to build a fire between the rails, but now, with everything soaked and dripping this was impossible.
“The semaphore signal!” gasped Ralph. “Can I reach it in time?”
He crossed the remainder of the trestle in desperate leaps. Ralph calculated the distance to the semaphore, the distance of the train, and his heart failed him. Still he kept on. His eyes were fixed on the lantern aloft showing open tracks for the oncoming train. It was his star of hope. Then as he reached it he saw that he was too late.
To scale the slippery timber to the staple-runners without boot hooks would be no easy task. To get to the first rung and ascend would consume fully two minutes’ time.154
“What shall I do—what can I do?” panted the young railroader in desperation.
Just beyond the semaphore was a symmetrical heap of bleached blocks of rock comprising a landmark guide for engineers. Ralph ran to it. Groping among the gravel at its base, his fingers frantically grasped several loose stones. He glanced once at the glowering headlight of No. 38.
“If I can make it—if I can only make it!” he voiced, and the aspiration was a kind of a wail.
The young engineer of No. 999 had been the former leader of all boyish sports and exercises in Stanley Junction. Posed as he had posed many times in the past when he was firing at a mark, with all his skill, he calculated aim, distance and fling. The bull’s eye target was the lantern pendant from the arm of the semaphore.
One—failed! the missile missed its intended mark.
Two—a ringing yell of delight, of hope, of triumph rang from the lips of the young engineer. The skillfully-aimed projectile had struck the glass of the signal, shivering it to atoms. The wind and rain did the rest. Out went the light.
A sharp whistle from No. 38, the hiss of the air brakes, and panting and exhausted, the young engineer of No. 999 watched the Night Express155whiz by on a lessening run and come to a stop two hundred yards away.
Ralph dashed after the train, now halted beyond the trestle. He did not heed the shout of the brakeman already out on the tracks, but got up to the locomotive just as the conductor, lantern in hand, reached it.
“Hello!” shot out the engineer of No. 38, staring at the figure outlined within the halo of the conductor’s light—“Fairbanks!”
“Why, so it is!” exclaimed the conductor, and it was easy for him to discern from Ralph’s sudden appearance and breathless manner that he had some interest, if not an active part, in the mysterious disappearance of the semaphore signal. “What is it, Fairbanks?”
Very hurriedly Ralph explained. The engineer of No. 38 uttered a low whistle, meantime regarding the active young railroader, whom he well knew, with a glance of decided admiration. Then as hurried were the further movements of the conductor.
Within a very few minutes a brakeman was speeding back to Widener to inform the man on duty there of the condition of affairs. He returned to report the situation in safe official control all up and down the line. In the meantime No 38. had moved up to the scene of the wreck.156This was done at the suggestion of Ralph, who did not know how the passengers in the special coach might have fared. Arrived at the scene, however, it was soon learned that two men only had been thrown from their beds and slightly bruised. The rest of the passengers were only shaken up.
The frightened passengers were huddled up, drenched to the skin, at the side of the gap, for Fogg had insisted on their taking no risk remaining in the derailed coach.
“We’re stalled for three hours,” decided the engineer of No. 38.
“Yes, and more than that, if the wrecking gang is not at Virden, as we suppose,” added the conductor.
The passengers of the derailed coach were taken to shelter in a coach which backed to Widener. There was nothing to do now for the engineer and fireman of No. 999 but to await the arrival of the wrecking crew. Word came finally by messenger from the dispatcher at the station that the same was on its way to the Gap. Inside of two hours the coach was back on the rails, and No. 999 moved ahead, took on transferred passengers from No. 38, and renewed the run to Bridgeport on a make-time schedule.
There had been a good many compliments for157the young engineer from the crew of No. 38. The conductor had expressed some gratifying expressions of appreciation from the passengers who had heard of Ralph’s thrilling feat at the semaphore. The conductor of the special coach attached to No. 999 had come up and shook hands with Ralph, a choking hoarseness in his throat as he remarked: “It’s a honor to railroad with such fellows as you.” Fogg had said little. There were many grim realities in railroading he knew well from experience. This was only one of them. After they started from Widener he had given his engineer a hearty slap of the shoulder, and with shining eyes made the remark:
“This is another boost for you, Fairbanks.”
“For No. 999, you mean,” smiled Ralph significantly. “We’ll hope so, anyway, Mr. Fogg.”
Wet, grimed, cinder-eyed, but supremely satisfied, they pulled into Bridgeport with a good record, considering the delay at the Gap. The conductor of the special coach laid off there. No. 999 was to get back to Stanley Junction as best she could and as quickly. As she cut loose from the coach its conductor came up with an envelope.
“My passengers made up a little donation, Fairbanks,” the man said. “There’s a newspaper man among them. He’s correspondent for some daily press association. Been writing up ‘the heroic158dash—brave youth at the trestle—forlorn hope of an unerring marksman’—and all that.”
“Oh, he’s not writing for a newspaper,” laughed Ralph; “he’s making up a melodrama.”
“Well, he’ll make you famous, just the same, and here’s some government photographs for you lucky fellows,” added the conductor, tossing the envelope in his hand into the cab.
Fogg grinned over his share of the fifty-dollar donation and accepted it as a matter of course. Ralph said nothing, but he was somewhat affected. He was pleased at the recognition of his earnest services. At the same time the exploit of the night had shaken his nerves naturally, and reminded him of all the perils that accompanied a practical railroad career. A stern sense of responsibility made him thoughtful and grave, and he had in mind many a brave, loyal fellow whose fame had been unheralded and unsung, who had stuck to his post in time of danger and had given up his life to save others.
No. 999 was back at Stanley Junction by eight o’clock the next morning. When Ralph reached home he was so tired out he did not even wait for breakfast, but went straightway to his bed.
He came down the stairs in the morning bright as a dollar, to hear his mother humming a happy song in the dining-room, and Fred Porter softly159accompanying with a low-toned whistle on the veranda. The latter, waving a newspaper in his hand, made a dash for Ralph.
“Look!” he exclaimed, pointing to some sensational headlines. “They’ve got you in print with a vengeance. A whole column about ‘the last heroic exploit of our expert young railroader and rising townsman—Engineer Fairbanks.’”
160CHAPTER XIXTHE BOY WHO WAS HAZED
“Well, Porter, proceed.”
Ralph gave the direction. He and Fred were seated in the garden summer-house, settled comfortably on benches facing each other across a rustic table, after a good breakfast, a general restful feeling permeating them.
“All right,” assented Fred. “Before I begin, though, I wish to make a remark. The way your mother and yourself have treated me has been just royal—I’ll never forget it!”
“And never forget us,” directed the young engineer with a warm, friendly smile. “You’ll always find yourself welcome in this house.”
“That’s what gets me,” said Fred, and there was a slight tremor and a suspicion of tears in his voice. “Most fellows would have little to do with an impostor, eh?”
“That’s a pretty hard word, Porter,” intimated Ralph. “Just the same, I believe in you. I have had confidence in you all along.”161
“And my story won’t disturb it any,” declared Fred. “Well, to begin—my name is not Marvin Clark.”
“Of course, I know that already.”
“It is Fred Porter.”
“So you have told me.”
“I am an orphan, homeless. As I said when I first came here, I have been a sort of a knockabout, a wanderer. I have been a poor boy. The real Marvin Clark, whose father is the real and genuine president of the Middletown & Western Railroad, is a rich boy. I have saved his life when he was drowning. He likes me for that, and there isn’t much that he wouldn’t do for me.”
“You deserve it,” said Ralph.
“Well, to make a long story short, he was a student at the Earlville Academy. He’s a fine, manly fellow, nothing sneaking or mean about him. One night, though, he and his school chums got to cutting up. They raided the town and had a dozen fights with the village boys. One of them was taken prisoner, a lad named Ernest Gregg. The academy fellows decided to haze him. They put him through an awful course of sprouts. They ducked him in the river, scared him with mock gunpowder explosions, and wound up by tying him blindfolded to a switch near a railroad track. They left him there all night. The result162was that when little Ernest was discovered the next morning, he was in a high fever and delirious.”
“Too bad,” murmured Ralph. “I don’t think much of your Marvin Clark.”
“Hold on, don’t misjudge him. He helped to capture the enemy, as they called poor little Gregg, but he left the crowd right after that, supposing his chums would scare their captive a bit and let him go. Clark had no hand whatever in the downright persecution that sent the boy to the hospital. It seems that some of the gunpowder got into the eyes of the little fellow, and the douse in the river had given him a cold. The scare he got had nearly driven him out of his right mind, for he was a timid little fellow. A month later Ernest was discharged from the hospital nearly blind, thin, pale and weakly, a mere shadow of his former self.”
“Of course the academy fellows tried to make up for all that,” suggested Ralph.
“They didn’t. Vacation came on, and they hied to their homes with not a thought of the great sorrow they had brought on their innocent victim. They say that Clark was just furious when he heard of it all. He laid out two of the ringleaders and shamed them in public. He sought out Ernest and took him to the best hotel in town.163He hired doctors, and loaded the little fellow with comforts and luxuries.”
“It must have cost him something,” remarked Ralph.
“What did Clark care for that? His father was rich and gave him all the money he wanted. He had an account at a bank, and was heir to two aunts who doated on him and who were fabulously rich. I never saw a fellow take to heart the misfortunes of a poor little stranger as Clark did. The incident seemed to have changed his whole life. He sobered down wonderfully. He blamed himself for the whole thing, and took the whole responsibilities upon himself. Nearly all the time he was with Ernest, trying to cheer him up, hoping to find some way to make him well and strong and happy again.”
“A royal good fellow, in fact, just as you said—I see that.”
“Yes, sir,” declared Fred staunchly. “Well, to continue: Clark’s father and family were going to Europe. They had arranged for young Clark to go with them, but he wouldn’t. Then there was a family council. Clark had not made much progress at school. He was fine at football, but no good at arithmetic. In fact, he was a disappointment to his father as a student. The old man, the academy professor, and the family lawyer, held a164great consultation. Old man Clark came to a stern decision. It was planned out that young Clark should follow in the footsteps of his father and become a railroader. A regular arrangement was made. Clark was to have free passes everywhere. He was to spend his entire vacation traveling over different railroad systems, while his folks were in Europe. Twice a week he was to send to the family lawyer reports of his progress, accompanied by vouchers showing that he had not wasted the time.”
“I see,” nodded Ralph; “also where you come in.”
“Yes, that’s easy to guess,” said Fred. “Just at that time I happened to be on a flying visit to Earlville, where one day I met Clark. He took me to the hotel, where I met Ernest. I had known young Gregg before, for he had come to Earlville a ragged, homeless lad before I first left, seeming to have no home or relatives, and going to work at odd jobs around the town. Clark told me of the fix he was in. While we were talking, a sudden idea came to him. He became very much excited and serious, and then made a very strange request of me.”
“To assume his identity and go railroading in his stead?” inquired Ralph, anticipating what was coming.165
“You’ve struck it,” assented Fred; “just that.”
“And you accepted?”
“And that is why you see me here,” said Fred. “Don’t think any the less of me, Fairbanks, for doing it. Don’t find fault with me if I took up the imposture for all there was in it. It’s my way—when I go at a thing, I do so with all my—nerves. I was Marvin Clark to the core. I took up his name, I played his part, and say, I tried not to disgrace his good name by one unmanly act. He taught me to imitate his handwriting perfectly one day. The next I was on the road, without a mishap until I met you.”
“Which may not be a mishap after all,” suggested the young engineer.
“I think as you do about that. I’ve come to you for advice, and I feel sure that it will be good advice. Now, then, to get to central motive of Clark’s plan—a noble, grand act, a royal deed. It was all for the sake of his little charge, Ernest Gregg.”
“I can imagine that,” said Ralph.
“Clark could not get the little fellow out of his mind. He had got, it seemed, a clew to some of his relatives. He told me that only for a wicked enemy, and if he had his rights, Ernest would be in a position of positive wealth. He said that he was determined to find a certain old man who166could clear up the whole situation. He was going to start out with Ernest to solve the secret of his strange life, while his friends supposed that he was following out the plan that his father had arranged. Clark made a plan how we were to keep track of one another, writing to certain points we agreed upon. I started out from Earlville on my part of the arrangement, while Clark stole out of town with his young charge. For three weeks I wrote regularly to him and he replied. During the last month I have not received a word from him, and some of my letters have come back to me.”
“Then you are worried about him?” inquired Ralph.
“I am, very much. You see, he spoke of an enemy of Ernest. How do I know what may have happened to both of them? If Clark should disappear, see what a fix I am in, assuming his name, spending his money. I’d have a hard time explaining reasonably the wild, mad move Clark made me take.”
“It is certainly a singular situation,” admitted the young railroader thoughtfully.
“Isn’t it, now? I’ve come to you to have you help me solve the problem. Think it over, give me some advice. Or, one thing—you go to many places with your railroading. You might keep167a watch out for Clark, just as I am doing. You might get a clew to him or run across him.”
“But how should I know him?” inquired Ralph.
“I’m going to give you his picture.”
“That will help.”
Fred drew out a memorandum book and selected from it a small photograph, which he presented to Ralph. The latter saw a bright, manly face portrayed in the picture.
“You keep that,” directed Fred.
Ralph reflected for a few moments. Then they discussed the situation in all its bearings. There was not much to suggest, however, on the part of the young engineer. The most they could hope for, he told Fred, was that one or the other of them might by some circumstance run across the missing Clark and his young charge.
“I’ve got an idea that I ought to run down a branch line of the road I have never been over,” suggested Fred, at the close of their animated colloquy. “If I do, I’ll have to catch a train in an hour. I’ll get word to you soon again, and if you hear of anything that interests me, I’ll arrange so that a letter or a wire will reach me if you address it to Marvin Clark, Lake Hotel, Wellsville.”
“All right,” agreed Ralph.
They strolled together down to the depot a little168after that. A train from the west came in just as the one having Fred for a passenger steamed out. A familiar figure alighted from one of the coaches.
“Here I am again,” announced Zeph Dallas, coming up to Ralph.
“How are your little friends, the Canaries?” inquired the young engineer.
“Safe and snug at home,” replied Zeph. “Going up to the house?”
“Yes, just come in from a special trip, and I probably have a lay-over till to-morrow. I want to call and see a friend at the hotel for a few moments. Then I’m at your service.”
When they reached the hotel, Ralph sought out Archie Graham, to find the young inventor in his room, engrossed in putting together some kind of a mechanical model. The latter greeted Ralph with effusion.
“I’m having the prime chance of my life,” declared Archie. “That note of yours was the open sesame to the roundhouse and everything about it. The foreman made me as welcome as a friend. I say, Fairbanks, they think a lot of you, these railroad chums of yours.”
“Do they?” asked Ralph, with a modest smile. “I’m glad they do.”
“I’ll show you results in a few days,” declared169Archie, with a show of more enthusiasm than Ralph had ever before seen him exhibit. “I’ve got up an invention that will just about revolutionize engineering.”
“You don’t say so!”
“Yes, I do. Only a day or two, and I’m going to try it—you’ll hear about it, all right.”
Ralph did, in fact, hear about it in a very sensational way, and within a few hours after the interview.
He rejoined Zeph and they proceeded homewards. Zeph was just as mysterious as ever about his new employment. Ralph knew that he was bubbling over from a pent-up lot of secrecy, but he did not encourage his quaint friend to violate an evident confidence reposed in him by his employer.
Zeph announced that he would like to stay over at the Fairbanks home until the next day, and was made duly welcome. He amazed and amused Ralph by showing him his “detective outfit,” as he called it. It was an incongruous mass, stored away in a flat leather case that he secreted in a great pocket made inside his coat—a wig, false whiskers, a pair of goggles, and a lot of other “secret service” paraphernalia, suggested to Zeph by reading some cheap and sensational detective stories.170
“Well, I’ve got to get on the shadowy trail to-day,” yawned Zeph, as he got out of bed the next morning.
“Where’s the shadow, Zeph?” asked Ralph humorously.
“Let you know when I find my quarry.”
“Ha, bad as that?” laughed Ralph.
“Oh, you can smile, Ralph Fairbanks,” said Zeph resentfully. “I tell you, I’m on a mighty important case and—say, where did you get that?”
“What?”
“That picture!” exclaimed Zeph, picking up from the bureau the photograph of Marvin Clark, given to the young engineer by Fred Porter the day previous.
“Oh, that picture?” said Ralph. “A friend of mine gave it to me. He’s trying to find its original, and hoped I could help him.”
“Trying to find him?” repeated Zeph with big staring eyes. “Whew! I can do that for you.”
“You can?” demanded Ralph.
“I should say so!”
“Do you know the original of that picture then?” inquired Ralph.
“Sure I do—why, he’s the person who hired me to be a detective,” was Zeph’s remarkable reply.
171CHAPTER XX“LORD LIONEL MONTAGUE”
“You can’t get on here!”
“But I’ve got a paus, don’t you know.”
“Paws? Yes, I see,” said Lemuel Fogg. “Take ’em off the tender, son, or you’ll get a jerk that will land you, for we’re going to start up pretty soon.”
“Hawdly—I have a right here, my man—I’ve got a paus, don’t you know.”
“See here, my friend, if you are bound for Hadley, this isn’t the train.”
“I didn’t say Hadley, sir, I said ‘hawdly.’”
“He means hardly, Mr. Fogg,” put in Ralph, “and he is trying to tell you he has a pass.”
“Why don’t he talk English, then?” demanded the fireman of No. 999 contemptuously, while the person who had aroused his dislike looked indignant and affronted, and now, extending a card to Ralph, climbed up into the tender.
He was a stranger to the engineer—a man Ralph could not remember having seen before.172His attire was that of a conventional tourist, and his face, words and bearing suggested the conventional foreigner. He wore a short, stubby black mustache and side whiskers, a monocle in one eye, and he had a vacuous expression on his face as of a person of immense profundity and “class.”
Ralph, glancing over the card, saw that it was a pass from the master mechanic of the road, briefly explaining that the bearer was Lord Lionel Montague, studying up American railroad systems.
“We can’t offer you a seat, Lord Montague,” spoke Ralph politely. “It’s rough work in cramped quarters aboard a locomotive.”
“I have noticed it,” replied “his ludship.” “Not so abroad, by no means, my man. In fact, on the home lines in Lunnon, it is quite the thing, you know, for the quality to make a fad of locomotive parties, and the accommodations for their comfort are quite superior to this, don’t you know.”
“That so?” growled Fogg, with an unpleasant glance at the stranger. “Why, I’ve had Senators in my cab in my time, glad to chum with the crew and set back on the coal, jolly and homelike as could be—as you’ll have to do, if you stay on this engine.”
“Remawkably detestable person!” observed the stranger confidentially to Ralph. “I shall ride only a short distance—to the first stop, in fact.”173
“You are welcome,” replied Ralph, “and if I can explain anything to you, I am at your service.”
“Thawnks, thawnks,” uttered the pretentious passenger, and fixed his monocled eye on space in a vapid way.
No. 999 was on schedule for the old accommodation run to Riverton. It was nearly a week after the interview between the young engineer and Fred Porter recited in the last chapter. Affairs had quited down with Ralph, and railroad life had settled down to ordinary routine of the usual commonplace character.
There had at first been considerable interest for Ralph in the remarkable statement of Zeph Dallas that the original of the photograph of Marvin Clark, the son of the railroad president, was his mysterious employer. Further than that involuntary admission of his erratic friend, however, Ralph could not persuade Zeph to go. Zeph declared that he was bound by a compact of the greatest secrecy. He insisted that there could be no possibility of a mistake in his recognition of the picture.
Ralph told him that a friend was very anxious to find his employer, and told Zeph who his friend was. The latter became serious, and acted quite174disturbed when he learned that it was Fred Porter, whom he had met several times.
“I’d like to tell you a whole lot, Ralph, but I can’t do it!” Zeph had burst out. “Say, one thing, though; I’m going to tell my employer about Fred Porter being so anxious to see him, and you can write to Porter and tell him that his friend is all right and safe, if you want to. What’s that address—I may get around to Porter myself.”
Ralph told Zeph. That same evening the latter left Stanley Junction, and Ralph had not heard from him since, nor did he receive word from Fred. Temporarily, at least, Zeph, Fred and the railroad president’s son, Marvin Clark, the “Canaries” and all the peculiar mystery surrounding them, seemed to have drifted out of the life of the young engineer.
No. 999 was about ready to start on her daily trip when the stranger designated as Lord Montague had appeared. As he stood against the tender bar and seemed to commune with himself on the crudity of American locomotive cabs, Ralph leaned from the window and hailed a friend.
“I say, Graham,” he observed, “you seem particularly active and restless this morning.”
Ralph had reason for the remark. The young inventor had been very little care to his sponsor and friend during the past week. Given free175access to the roundhouse, Archie had just about lived there. Quiet and inoffensive, he at first had been a butt for the jokes of the wipers and the extras, but his good-natured patience disarmed those who harmlessly made fun of him, and those who maliciously persecuted him had one warning from his sledge-hammer fists, and left him alone afterwards.
On this especial morning Archie was stirred with an unusual animation. Ralph noticed this when he first came down to the roundhouse. The young inventor hung around the locomotive suspiciously. He even rode on the pilot of No. 999 to the depot, and for the past five minutes he had paced restlessly up and down the platform as though the locomotive held some peculiar fascination for him. As he now came up to the cab at Ralph’s hail, his eye ran over the locomotive in the most interested way in the world, and Ralph wondered why.
“Call me, Fairbanks?” mumbled Archie, and Ralph could not catch his eye.
“I did, Graham,” responded Ralph. “What’s stirring you?”
“Why?”
“Chasing up 999.”
“Am I?”176
“It looks that way; it looks to me as if you were watching the locomotive.”
“She’s worth watching, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but you act as if you expect her to do something.”
“Ha! ha!—that’s it, h’m—you see—say, wish I could run down the line with you this morning.”
“We’re crowded in the cab, as you see,” explained Ralph, “but if you want the discomfort of balancing on the tank cover back there––”
“I’d dote on it—thanks, thanks,” said Archie with a fervor that increased Ralph’s curiosity as to his strange actions this particular morning.
“Got some new bee in his head?” suggested Fogg, as Archie scrambled up over the coal. “He’ll have a new kind of locomotive built by the time we clear the limits—that is, in his mind.”
Lord Lionel Montague warmed up to Ralph the next few minutes before starting time. He asked a few casual questions about the mechanisms of No. 999, and then seemed tremendously interested in the young engineer himself.
“I’ve taken a fawncy to you, Mr. Fairbanks, don’t you know,” he drawled out. “I’d like to cultivate you, quite. I must call on you at Stanley Junction. There’s a great deal you might tell me of interest, don’t you see.”177
“I shall be happy to be of service to you, Lord Montague,” responded Ralph courteously.
He did not like the man. There was something untrue about his shifty eye. There was a lot of “put on” that did not strike Ralph as natural. “His ludship” harped on the youth of Ralph. Only veterans were intrusted with important railroad positions in England—“didn’t he know.” He was asking many questions about Ralph’s juvenile friends, as if with some secret purpose, when the train started up.
“Hi, up there!” Fogg challenged Archie, seated on the tank tender top, “don’t get moving up there and tumble off.”
The young inventor certainly looked as if he was moving. His eyes were glued to the smokestack of the locomotive, as though it possessed a fascinating influence over him.
“Say, there’s some draft this morning,” observed the fireman, half-way to the crossing, as he threw some coal into the furnace.
“I should say so,” replied Ralph; “some sparks, too, I notice.”
“Humph! that new patent spark arrester don’t arrest particularly,” commented Fogg. “Queer,” he added, with a speculative eye on the smokestack.
That appendage of No. 999 was shooting out178showers of sparks like a roman candle. As she slid the splits at the crossing and got down to real business, the display was very noticeable.
“I’d say that some of our old time enemies were doctoring the fuel, if it wasn’t that the crowd is off the job after that last drubbing I gave Hall and Wilson,” remarked the fireman. “I can’t understand it. That draft is pulling the coal up through the flues fast as I can shovel it in. Thunder!”
With a yell the fireman of No. 999, as he opened the furnace door to throw in more coal, leaped to one side.
A cyclonic stream, like the sudden blast of a volcano, poured out into the cab.
179CHAPTER XXIARCHIE GRAHAM’S INVENTION
The cab was suddenly filled with smoke, ashes and steam. Something unusual had happened. Unable to determine it all in a minute, Ralph pulled the lever and set the air brakes.
Mingled with the jar and the hiss of steam there arose a great cry—it was a vast human roar, ringing, anguished, terrified. It proceeded from the lips of the self-dubbed Lord Montague, and glancing towards the tender Ralph witnessed a startling sight.
The monocled, languid-aired nobleman had struck a pose against the tender bar, and as Fogg opened the furnace door and the fire box suddenly belched out a sheet of flame and then a perfect cloud of ashes, the passenger of high degree was engulfed. Fogg, alert to his duty, after nimbly skipping aside, had kicked the furnace door shut. He was not quick enough, however, to prevent what seemed to be half the contents of the furnace180from pouring out a great cascade of ashes as if shot from a cannon, taking the astounded and appalled Montague squarely down his front.
“Murder!” he yelled, and grasped his head in his hands to brush away the hot ashes that were searing his face.
As he did so he became a new personality. His mustache was brushed from his lip and fell to the bottom of the cab, while its former possessor made a mad dive to one side.
“Here, you chump!” cried Fogg; “do you want to kill yourself?” and grabbing the singed and frightened passenger, he pinned him against the coal and held him there. In doing this he brushed one whisker from the side of his captive’s face, and the latter lay panting and groaning with nearly all his fictitious make-up gone and quite all of his nerve collapsed.
“What’s happened?” asked Ralph, as they slowed down.
“It felt like a powder blast,” declared Fogg.
Archie Graham had uttered a cry of dismay—of discovery, too, it seemed to Ralph. The young engineer glanced at his friend perched on the top of the tender tank. The face of the young inventor was a study.
Archie acted less like a person startled than as one surprised. He appeared to be neither shocked181nor particularly interested. His expression was that of one disappointed. It suddenly flashed across Ralph, he could scarcely have told why, that the young inventor had indeed been “inventing” something, that something had slipped a cog, and that he was responsible for the catastrophe of the moment. Now Archie looked about him in a stealthy, baffled way, as though he was anxious to sneak away from the scene.
Half-blinded, sputtering and a sight, “his ludship” struggled out of the grasp of the fireman. His monocle was gone. His face, divested of its hirsute appendages, Ralph observed, was a decidedly evil face. As the train came to a halt the dismantled passenger stepped from the cab, and wrathfully tearing the remaining false whiskers from place, sneaked down the tracks, seeking cover from his discomfiture.
“Hi! you’ve left that nobleman face of yours behind you,” shouted Fogg after him. “What’s his game, Fairbanks?”
“It staggers me,” confessed Ralph. “Hello, there, Graham!”
But the young inventor with due haste was disappearing over the rear of the tender, as though he was ashamed of a part in the puzzling occurrence at the moment.
“Something’s wrong,” muttered Fogg, and he182opened the furnace door timidly. There was no further outburst of ashes. “Queer,” he commented. “It couldn’t have been powder. I noticed a draft soon as we started. What made it? Where is it now?”
“It was only when we were running fast,” submitted Ralph.
The fireman leaped down to the tracks. He inspected the locomotive from end to end. Then he began ferretting under the engine. Ralph watched him climb between the drivers. Strange, muffled mutterings announced some discovery. In a moment or two Fogg crawled out again.
“I vum!” he shouted. “What is this contraption?”
He grasped a piece of wire-netted belting, and as he trailed out its other end, to it was attached a queer-looking device that resembled a bellows. Its frame was of iron, and it had a tube with a steel nozzle.
“I say,” observed the young engineer, in a speculative tone, “where did that come from?”
“I found its nozzle end stuck in through one end of the draft holes in the fire box,” answered Fogg. “This belt ran around two axles and worked it. Who put it there?”
“Graham,” announced Ralph politely. “Well—well—I understand his queer actions now.183Bring it up here,” continued Ralph, as the fireman was about to throw it aside.
“The young fellow who thinks he is going to overturn the system with his inventions? Well, he must have done a lot of work, and it must have taken a heap of time to fix the thing so it worked. The belt was adjusted to a T. Say, you’d better keep him out of the roundhouse, or he’ll experiment on us some day in a way that may lead to something serious.”
Ralph put the contrivance under his seat for more leisurely inspection later on. He had to smile to think of the patience, the ingenuity and the eccentric operation of the well-meant project of his young inventor friend. The bellows principle of increasing the furnace draft might have been harmless in a stationary engine. Even on the locomotive it had shown some added suction power while the locomotive was going ahead, but the moment the furnace door was opened the current of air from below sought the nearest vent. That was why “his ludship” had retired under a decided cloud in more ways than one.
When they arrived at Riverton the young engineer made a search for both Archie and the disguised impostor. He located neither. From what he gathered from the conductor, Archie had left the train at the first station after the184stop. The pretended English lord had been noticed footing it back towards Stanley Junction.
The return trip was uneventful. Archie did not put in an appearance, and Ralph fancied he might have gone back to Bridgeport. The next morning when Ralph reported for duty, little Torchy, the call boy, sidled up to him in a confidential way.
“Say, Mr. Fairbanks—I noticed a fellow was on your cab on your run yesterday that I have seen before––”
“Indeed,” answered Ralph curiously; “what about him?”
“Nothing much, only he was around here a couple of days ago. He pretended that he wanted to see the inside of a roundhouse, and Mr. Forgan sent me with him to show him about. When he got me alone he began asking me all about you. Then he tried to pump me about all your boy friends. I didn’t like his looks or his actions, so I thought I would tell you what I have.”
“Thank you,” said Ralph. “If you ever run against him again, tell me.”
“I will, sure,” responded the staunch little fellow, who had a genuine friendship for Ralph, who had encouraged him greatly, by initiating him into roundhouse duties when he first came to work for the Great Northern.185
Ralph could not fathom the possible motive of the stranger, who apparently was somehow interested in his doings. When they started out on their regular run, he told Fogg what Torchy had imparted to him. The fireman reflected speculatively over the disclosure.
“I can’t understand what the fellow is up to,” he admitted, “unless one of the gangs is up to a new trick and has hired a stranger to work it on us.”
There was a long wait at Riverton after arrival that day. Then they were sided, and Fogg strolled off to a restaurant. Ralph sat down on a pile of ties at the side of the track and enjoyed the lunch that he had brought with him from home. He had just finished it and was about to go to the cab and get a book on railroading to read, when a tall, farmer-appearing fellow came upon the scene.
“Say,” he drawled, “is this 999—yes, I see it is.”
“All right,” nodded Ralph; “what about it?”
“I want to see the engineer.”
“I am the engineer.”
“Name Fairbanks?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m sent to you.”
“By whom?”186
“Don’t know—never saw the boy before. He’s a stranger in Riverton. Came up to me and gave me a half-a-dollar to come here and deliver a message to you.”
“Let me know it,” directed Ralph.
“Come out here on the tracks, and I’ll show you where he said you was to come to see him. See that old shed over beyond those freights? Well, the boy said you was to come there.”
“Oh, he did?” commented Ralph musingly.
“Yes, he said to come alone, as it was particular. He said you’d know when I said Martin—Martin, oh, yes, Clark, that’s it.”
“Marvin Clark,” decided the young railroader at once, and as the messenger went his way Ralph ran to the engine cab, threw off his jacket and then walked down the tracks. He of course thought of Fred Porter at once. It looked as though that individual had turned up again and had sent for him, and Ralph was glad to hear from him at last.
The building that had been pointed out to him by the boy messenger was a storage shed for repair tools and supplies. Ralph passed a line of damaged freights, and reaching the shed, found its door open. He stepped across the threshold and peered around among the heaps of iron and steel.187
“Is anybody here?” he inquired.
“Yes, two of us,” promptly responded a harsh, familiar voice, that gave Ralph a start, for the next instant his arms were seized, drawn behind him, and the young engineer of No. 999 found himself a prisoner.
188CHAPTER XXIIIKE SLUMP AGAIN
Ralph knew at once that he had fallen into a trap of some kind. He struggled violently, but it was of no avail. Two persons had slipped up behind him, two pairs of hands were holding him captive.
“Who are you?” demanded the young engineer sharply, over his shoulder.
There was no response, but he was forced forward clear back into the shed. The front door was kicked shut. Ralph was thrown roughly among a heap of junk. He recovered himself quickly and faced his assailants.
The light in the place was dim and uncertain. The only glazed aperture in the shed was a small window at the rear. With considerable interest Ralph strained his gaze in an endeavor to make out his captors. Then in immense surprise he recognized both.
“Ike Slump and Jim Evans,” he spoke aloud involuntarily.189
“You call the roll,” observed Evans with a sneer.
Ralph reflected rapidly. The last he had heard of this precious brace of comrades, they had been sentenced to prison for a series of bold thefts from the railroad company. How they had gotten free he could not decide. He fancied that they had in some way escaped. At all events, they were here, and the mind of the young engineer instantly ran to one of two theories as to their plans: Either the gang at Stanley Junction had hired them to annoy or imperil him, or Slump and Evans were inspired by motives of personal revenge.
Ike Slump had been a trouble to Ralph when he first began his ambitious railroad career. It was Slump who had hated him from the start when Ralph began his apprenticeship with the Great Northern, as related in “Ralph of the Roundhouse.” Ralph had detected Slump and others in a plot to rob the railroad company of a lot of brass journal fittings. From that time on through nearly every stage of Ralph’s upward career, Slump had gone steadily down the easy slope of crime.
When he linked up with Evans, his superior in years and cunning, he had several times sought revenge against Ralph, and but for the vigilance190and courage of the young engineer his life might have paid the forfeit.
Evans acted promptly, wasting no words. He had drawn a weapon from his pocket, and this he handed to Slump. Then he turned a fierce, lowering visage upon Ralph.
“Fairbanks,” he began, “you’re to go with us—where, don’t matter, nor why. We owe you one, as you’ve known for a long time, and if it wasn’t that we’re here for the money there is in it, and not revenge, I’d take pleasure in balancing the months you got us in jail by crippling you so you’d never pull another lever. This is business, though, pure and simple. If you get hurt, you can blame yourself. You’ve got to go with us.”
“Why have I?” demanded Ralph.
“Because we say so. There’s a man quite anxious to see you.”
“Who is he?”
“That’s telling. He wants to ask you just one question. A civil answer given, and you are free as the wind. Slump, take this pistol, get up on that pile of rails, and guard Fairbanks. If he starts to run, shoot—understand?”
“I guess I do!” snarled the graceless Ike, climbing to the top of the pile of rails. “When I think of what this fellow has done to down me, it makes my blood boil.”191
“I’ll be back with a wagon in fifteen minutes,” said Evans. “You take your medicine quietly, Fairbanks, and nobody will get hurt. Try any capers, and blame yourself.”
The speaker proceeded to the door of the shed, opened it, and closed it after himself as if everything was settled his way. Ike Slump, regarding the captive with a venomous expression of face, sat poising his weapon with the manner of a person glad to have an occasion arise that would warrant its use under the instructions given by his partner.
Ralph summed up the situation and counted his chances. It was apparent to him that only a bold, reckless dash could avail him. There was no chance to pounce upon and disarm the enemy, however, and Ralph hesitated about seeking any risks with a fellow who held him so completely at his mercy.
“How does it seem?” jeered Ike, after a spell of silence, but Ralph did not answer at once. He had experienced no actual fear when so suddenly seized. Now, although he could not disregard a certain risk and menace in the custody of two of his worst enemies, a study of the face of the youth before him made the young railroader marvel as to what he could find enticing in doing wrong, and192he actually felt sorrow and sympathy, instead of thinking of his own precarious situation.
“Slump,” spoke Ralph finally, “I am sorry for you.”
“That so? Ho! ho! truly?” gibed the graceless Ike. “What game are you up to? Don’t try any, I warn you. You’re clever, Ralph Fairbanks, but I’m slick. You see, the tables have turned. I knew they would, some time.”
“What is it you fellows want of me, anyhow?” ventured Ralph, hoping to induce Ike to disclose something.
“Nothing to worry about,” declared Slump carelessly. “You’ll soon know. Say, though, Fairbanks, don’t stir the lion, don’t pull his tail.”
“You seem to be talking about menageries,” observed Ralph.
“You’ll think you’re in one, sure enough, if you rile Evans up. He won’t stand any fooling, you hear me. Shut up, now. We’ll leave discussing things till this job is over and done with. Then I may have something to tell you on my own personal account, see?” and Ike tried to look very fierce and dangerous. “I’ll give you something to think of, though. You’re going to tell a certain man all you know about a certain fellow, and you’re going to fix it so that the certain man can193find the certain fellow, or you don’t run 999 for a time to come, I’ll bet you.”
“Who is this certain man?” inquired Ralph.
“I don’t know his name. He’s a stranger to me.”
“And who is the certain fellow?”
“I know that one—I don’t mind telling you. Then shut up. You’ve a way of worming things out of people, and I’m not going to help you any—it’s Marvin Clark.”
“I thought it was,” nodded the young engineer reflectively; and then there was a spell of silence.
Ralph could only conjecture as to the significance of Ike’s statement. There certainly was some vivid interest that centered about the missing son of the railroad president. That name, Marvin Clark, had been used to lure Ralph to the old shed. Now it was again employed. It took a far flight of fancy to discern what connection young Clark might have with these two outcasts—worse, criminals. Ralph decided that their only mission in any plot surrounding Clark was that of hired intermediaries. He did not know why, but somehow he came to the conclusion that Evans and Slump were acting in behalf of the pretended Lord Montague. Why and wherefore he could not imagine, but he believed that through circumstances now developing he would soon find out.194
Slump shifted around on the pile of rails a good deal. They afforded anything but a comfortable resting place. Finally he seemed to decide that he would change his seat. He edged along with the apparent intention of reaching a heap of spike kegs. He never, however, took his eye away from Ralph. Ike, too, held his weapon at a continual menace, and gave his captive no chance to act against him or run for the door.
Near the end of the pile of rails, Ike prepared to descend backwards to the spike kegs. He planned to do this without for an instant relaxing his vigilance. As he reached out one foot to touch the rails, there was an ominous grinding sound. He had thrown his weight on one rail. The contact pushed this out of place.
Once started, the whole heap began to shift. Ralph, quite awed, saw the pile twist out of shape, and, tumbling in their midst, was his watcher. A scream of mortal agony rang through the old shed, and Ike Slump landed on the floor with half a ton of rails pinioning his lower limbs.