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

CHAPTER V – IKE SLUMP

“Things are narrowing down and closing in,” said the young engineer to himself as he left the Fairbanks cottage.

Ralph started away at a brisk pace. As he had told his mother, he was anxious to see the paymaster of the Great Northern. The general offices were now closed, and Ralph had the home of the paymaster in view as his present destination.

A vivid memory of what the torn sheet found in the riddled vest pocket revealed engrossed his mind. That sheet was a scrawl, a letter, or rather what was left of it. Enough of it was there to cause the young railroader to believe that he had made a most important and startling discovery.

The screed was from one scamp in the city to another scamp on the road. Judging from the scrawl, a regular set of scamps had been hired to do some work for high-up, respectable fellows. This work was the securing of certain secret information, the private property of the Great Northern, nothing more-for the present at least.

It seemed, however, that “Jem,” in the city, had advised “Rivers,” on the road, that now was the great opportunity to work personal graft on the side-as he designated it. He advised Rivers to keep the regular job going, as five dollars a day was pretty good picking. He, however, added that he must keep close tab on the paymaster deal. It meant a big bag of game. It might not be according to orders, but the other railroad fellows wouldn’t lose any sleep if the Great Northern turned up with an empty pay car some fine morning.

The hint was given also that the way to do things right was to get close to the paymaster’s system. Such suggestive words as “watching,” “papers,” appeared in the last lines of the riddled sheet of paper.

“The precious set of rascals,” commented Ralph indignantly. “The assistant superintendent knew what he was talking about, it seems. It’s all as plain as day to me. Our rivals have employed an irresponsible gang to spy on and cripple our service. Their hirelings are plotting to make a great steal on their own account. Hi, there-mind yourself, will you!”

Ralph was suddenly nearly knocked off his feet. At the moment he was passing along the side of a building used as a restaurant. It was a great lounging place for young loafers, and second class and discharged railroad men.

Its side door had opened forcibly and the big bouncing proprietor of the place was wrathfully chasing a lithe young fellow from the place. His foot barely grazed the latter, who pirouetted on the disturbed Ralph and went sliding across the pavement to the gutter.

“Get out, I tell you, get out!” roared the irate restaurant man. “We don’t want the likes of you about here.”

“I’m out, ain’t I?” pertly demanded the intruder.

“And stay out.”

“Yah!”

The man slammed the door, muttered something about stolen tableware and changed eating checks. Ralph did not pause to challenge the ousted intruder further. One glance he had cast at the ugly, leering face of the lad. Then, his lips puckered to an inaudible whistle of surprise and dislike, he hurried his steps.

“Ike Slump!” uttered the young railroader under his breath.

It only needed the presence of the detestable owner of that name to momentarily cause Ralph to feel that the situation was working down to one of absolute peril and intense seriousness. Ike Slump had been a name to conjure by in the past-with the very worst juvenile element in Stanley Junction.

Way back in his first active railroad work, about the first repellant and obnoxious element Ralph had come up against was Ike Slump. When Ralph was given a job in the roundhouse, he had found Ike Slump in the harness. From the very start the latter had made trouble for the new hand.

Ike had tried to direct Ralph wrong, to slight work, to aid him in pulling the wool over the eyes of their superiors in doing poor work. Ralph had manfully refused to be a party to such deception.

A pitched battle had ensued in which Slump was worsted. Later he was discharged, still later he was detected in stealing metal fittings from the roundhouse. After that Ike Slump joined a crowd of regular yard thieves. As Ralph went up the ladder of fortune, Ike went down. He was arrested, escaped, made many attempts to “get even,” as he called it, with the boy who had never done him a wrong, and the last Ralph had heard of him he was serving a term in some jail for train wrecking.

How he had got free was a present mystery to Ralph. That he had been pardoned or his sentence remitted through some influence or other was evident, for here was Slump, back in Stanley Junction, where Adair, the road detective, would pick him up in a jiffy, if he was a fugitive from justice.

Ralph had no wish to come in contact with the fellow. On the contrary, so distasteful was Slump and his many ways and his low companions to Ralph, that he was desirous of strictly evading him. Ralph, however, could not help experiencing a new distrust at coming upon Slump at a time when presumptive villainy was in the air.

“Hey!”

Ralph did not pause at the challenge. He realized that Slump had seen and recognized him. He kept straight on, paying no attention to the hail, repeated, but at the corner of two streets, under a lamplight, he halted, for Slump was at his side.

“Well, what do you want?” demanded Ralph bluntly, and with no welcome in his voice.

“I-want to speak to you,” stammered Slump, breathless from his run. “I suppose it tickled you nearly to death to see me kicked out of the restaurant back yonder, hey?”

“Why should it?” inquired Ralph.

“That’s all right, Fairbanks; natural, too, I suppose, for you never liked me.”

“Did you ever give me a chance to try.”

“Eh? Well, let that pass. Don’t be huffy now. See here.”

As Slump spoke, he extended his hands. They were coarse and grimy. With a smirk he inquired:

“See them?”

“See what?” demanded Ralph.

“Clean hands.”

“Are they-I didn’t understand.”

“Yes, sir,” declared the young rowdy volubly. “They’ve worked out the sentence on the stoke pile, and I owe the state nothing. I’m as free in Stanley Junction as any goody-goody boy in the burg, and I want you to know it.”

“All right, Ike,” said Ralph, pleasantly enough, “hope you’ll improve the chance to make good, now you’ve got the opportunity.”

“You bet I will,” retorted Slump, with a strangely jubilant chuckle.

“That’s good.”

“Don’t go, I’ve got something else to say to you.”

“I’m pressed for time, Slump-”

“Oh, you can spare me a minute. It may do you some good. Say, you’ve managed to climb up some while I’ve been locked up, haven’t you?”

“I’ve had good steady work, yes.”

“I’d give an arm for just one run on that dandy Overland Express of yours,” observed Slump.

“Why don’t you work for it, then,” questioned Ralph. “It’s in any boy who will attend strictly to business.”

“Oh, I don’t want the glory,” explained Slump.

“What, then?”

“Just one chance to spurt her up till she rattled her old boiler into smithereens and run the whole train into the ditch. That’s how much I love the Great Northern!”

Ralph was disgusted. He started down the walk, but Slump was persistent. The latter caught his arm. Ralph allowed himself to be brought to a halt, but determined to break away very shortly.

“Just a word, Fairbanks, before you go,” said Slump. “You’re going to come across me once in a while, and I want a pleasant understanding, see? You won’t see me getting into any more scrapes by holding the bags for others. I’m after the real velvet now, and I’m going to get it, see? I know a heap of what’s going on, and something is. I’ll give you one tip. I can get you a small fortune to resign your position on the Great Northern.”

The way Ike Slump pronounced these words, looking squarely into the eyes of Ralph, could not fail to impress the latter with the conviction that there was some sinister meaning in the proposition. Ralph, however, laughed lightly.

“Thinking of starting a railroad of your own, Slump?” he asked.

“No, I ain’t,” dissented Slump. “All the same-you see, do you?”

Slump smartly put out one hand curved up like a cup.

“Yes, you told me before,” nodded Ralph-“clean hands this time.”

“Now, this is a different deal.”

“Well?”

“Hollow of my hand-see?”

“I don’t.”

“Maybe it holds a big railroad system, maybe it don’t. Maybe I know a turn or two on the programme where the tap of a finger blows things up, maybe I don’t. I only say this: I can fix you right with the right parties-for a consideration. Think it over, see? When you see me again have a little chat with me. It will pay you-see?”

Ralph walked on more slowly after a long wondering stare at Ike Slump. He had never been afraid of the young knave either in a square fight or in a battle of wits. There was something ominous, however, in this new attitude of Slump. He had told just enough to show that something antagonistic to the Great Northern was stirring, and that he was mixed up with it.

The home of the paymaster was located over near the railroad, quite away from the business centre of the town. Ralph reached it after a brisk walk. He found the place dark and apparently untenanted. It looked as if Mr. Little and his family were away, probably at some neighbor’s house. Then going around to the side of the house and glancing up at the windows, Ralph discovered something that startled him.

“Hello!” he exclaimed involuntarily, and every sense was on the alert in an instant.

Two flashes inside the downstairs wing of the house, which Ralph knew Mr. Little used as a library, had glinted across the panes of an uncurtained window. Somebody inside the room had scratched a match which went out, then another which stayed lighted.

Its flickerings for a moment illuminated the apartment and revealed two men standing near a desk at one side of the room.

“Why,” exclaimed the young railroader-“those mysterious men again!”

CHAPTER VI – IN THE TUNNEL

Ralph pressed close to the window pane of Mr. Little’s library room but he did not succeed in seeing much. The last match struck revealed to his sight the two men who had acted so suspiciously the day he had seen them hanging around the Overland Express train with Glen Palmer’s grandfather.

If all that he had surmised and discovered was true, it was quite natural that he should come upon them again. Ralph was less startled than surprised. He wondered what their motive could be in visiting the paymaster’s house.

“They are not up to burglary,” the idea ran through his mind. “It must be they are searching among the paymaster’s papers to find out what they can about his system and methods. Yes, that is it.”

Ralph saw the man who had struck the matches draw from his pocket a tallow candle, evidently intending to light it. His companion had pulled up the sliding top of a desk and was reaching out toward some pigeon holes to inspect their contents. Just then an unexpected climax came.

The foot of the young railroader slipped on a patch of frozen grass as he pressed too close to the window. Ralph fell up against this with a slight clatter. The man with the match turned very sharply and suddenly. He glared hard at the source of the commotion. He must have caught sight of Ralph’s face before the latter had time to draw back, for he uttered a startled ejaculation.

With a bang the desk top fell back in place, the match went out, and the man with the candle fired it wildly at the form at the window with sufficient force to penetrate the pane with a slight crash.

Ralph drew back, some fine splinters of glass striking his face. It was totally dark now in the room into which he had peered. He could catch the heavy tramping of feet in flight and a door slammed somewhere in the house.

“Hey, there-what are you up to,” challenged Ralph, sharply, as he stood in a puzzled way debating what was best to do. He turned about, to face a powerfully-built man, cane in hand, storming down upon him from the front of the house.

“It is you, Mr. Little?” inquired Ralph quickly.

“Yes, it’s me. Who are you? Oh, young Fairbanks,” spoke the paymaster, peering closely at Ralph.

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought I heard a pane of glass smash-”

“You did. Hurry to the rear, Mr. Little.”

“What for?”

“I’ll cover the front.”

“Why-”

“Two men are in your house. They were just at your desk when I discovered them.”

“Two men in the house!”

“I can’t explain now, but it is very important that we prevent their escape.”

“Burglars! We were all over to supper at wife’s folks-”

“Spies, fits the case better, sir-some rival road spite work, maybe. It’s serious, as I shall explain to you later.”

“There they are. Hey, stop!”

Two figures had cut across the lawn from the rear of the house.

“They are the same men,” declared Ralph, and both he and the paymaster put after them.

The fugitives paid no attention to the repeated demands of the paymaster to halt. They crossed a vacant field and suddenly went clear out of sight.

“They’ve dropped over the wall guarding the north tracks,” said Ralph.

“And we’ll follow!” declared Mr. Little dauntlessly.

At this point the north branch of the road ran down a steep grade and was walled in for over a thousand feet. Ralph dropped onto the cindered roadbed. Mr. Little more clumsily followed him.

“Where now?” he puffed, as he scrambled to his feet.

“There they go,” said Ralph, pointing towards two forms quite plainly revealed in the night light.

“I see them,” spoke the paymaster. “They’re caged in.”

“Unless they take to the tunnel.”

“Then we’ll take to it, too,” insisted Mr. Little. “I’m bound to get those men.”

Ralph admired the pluck and persistency of his companion. The paymaster was a big man and a brave one. He had the reputation of generally putting through any job he started on. The young railroader did not entirely share the hopes of his companion, as he saw the two fugitives reach the mouth of the tunnel, and its gloom and darkness swallowed them up like a cloud.

“The mischief!” roared the paymaster, going headlong, his cane hurtling through space as he stumbled over a tie brace. “I’ve sprained my ankle, I guess, Fairbanks. Don’t stop for me. Run those fellows down. There’s bound to be a guard at the other end of the tunnel. Call in his help.”

Ralph grabbed up the cane where it had fallen and put sturdily after the fugitives. The tunnel slanted quite steeply at its start. It was about an eighth of a mile in length, and single tracked only. Ralph was not entirely familiar with running details on this branch of the Great Northern, but he felt pretty sure that there were no regular trains for several hours after six o’clock.

The men he was pursuing had quite some start of him, and unless he could overtake them before they reached the other end of the tunnel they were as good as lost for the time being. Ralph’s thought was that when he had passed the dip of the tunnel, he would be able to make out the forms of the fugitives against the glare of the numerous lights in the switchyards beyond the other entrance.

The young railroader retained possession of the paymaster’s cane as a weapon that might come in handy for attack or defense, as the occasion might arise.

It was as black as night in the tunnel, once he got beyond the entrance, and he had to make a blind run of it. The roadbed was none too smooth, and he had to be careful how he picked his steps. The air was close and smoky, and he paused as he went down the sharp grade with no indication whatever through sight or sound of the proximity of the men he was after.

It had occurred to him more than once that the men in advance, if they should happen to glance back, would be able to catch the outlines of his figure against the tunnel outlet. As they did not wish at all to be overhauled, however, Ralph believed they would plan less to attack him than to strain every effort to get into hiding as speedily as possible.

Headed forward at quite a brisk pace, the young railroader came suddenly up against an obstruction. It was human, he felt that. In fact, as he ran into a yielding object he knew the same to be a barrier composed of joined hands of the two fugitives. They had noted or guessed his sharp pursuit of them, had joined each a hand, and spreading out the others practically barricaded the narrow tunnel roadbed so he could in no manner get past them.

“Got him!” spoke a harsh voice in the darkness. Ralph receded and struck out with the cane. He felt that it landed with tremendous force on some one, for a sharp cry ensued. The next instant one of the fugitives pinioned one wrist and the other his remaining wrist.

Ralph swayed and swung to and fro, struggling actively to break away from his captors.

“What now?” rang out at his ear.

“Run him forward.”

“He won’t run.”

“Then give him his quietus.”

Ralph felt that a cowardly blow in the dark was pending. He had retained hold of the cane. He tried to use this as a weapon, but the clasp on either wrist was like that of steel. He could only sway the walking stick aimlessly.

A hard fist blow grazed one ear, bringing the blood. Ralph gave an old training ground twist to his supple body, at the same time deftly throwing out one foot. He had succeeded in tripping up his captor on the left, but though the fellow fell he preserved a tenacious grip on the wrist of the plucky young railroader.

“Keep your clutch!” panted the other man. “I’ll have him fixed in a jiffy. Thunder! what’s coming?”

“A train!”

“Break loose-we’re lost!”

Ralph was released suddenly. The man on the right, however, had delivered the blow he had started to deal. It took Ralph across the temple and for a moment dazed and stunned him. He fell directly between the rails.

The two men had darted ahead. He heard one of them call out to hug the wall closely. Then a sharp grinding roar assailed Ralph’s ears and he tried to trace out its cause.

“Something is coming,” he murmured. His skilled hearing soon determined that it was no locomotive or train, but he was certain that some rail vehicle of light construction was bearing down upon him.

Ralph was so dazed that he could barely collect wit and strength in an endeavor to crawl out of the roadbed. With a swishing grind the approaching car, or whatever it was, tore down the sharp incline.

His sheer helplessness of the instant appalled and amazed Ralph. It seemed minutes instead of seconds before he rolled, crept, crawled over the outside rail. As he did so, with a whang stinging his nerves like needles of fire, one end of the descending object met his suspended foot full force, bending it up under him like a hinge.

Ralph was driven, lifted against the tunnel wall with harsh force. His head struck the wet slimy masonry, causing his brain to whirl anew.

Something swept by him on seeming wings of fleetness. There was a rush of wind that almost took his breath away. Then there sounded out upon the clammy blackness of the tunnel an appalling, unearthly scream.

CHAPTER VII – DANGER SIGNALS

The danger seemed gone, with the passage of the whirling object on wheels that had so narrowly grazed the young railroader, but mystery and vagueness remained in its trail.

“What was it?” Ralph heard one of his late assailants ask.

“A hand car,” was the prompt reply. “She must have struck somebody. Did you hear that yell?”

“Yes-run for it. We don’t know what may have happened, and we don’t want to be caught here if anybody comes to find out what is up.”

Ralph was in no condition to follow the fugitives. For a moment he stood trying to rally his scattered senses. The situation was a puzzling and distrustful one. Abruptly he crouched against the wall of the tunnel.

“The hand car,” he breathed-“it is coming back!”

As if to emphasize this discovery, a second time and surely nearing him that alarming cry of fright rang out. Again reversed, the hand car whizzed by him. Then in less than twenty seconds it shot forward in the opposite direction once more. Twice it thus passed him, and on each occasion more slowly, and Ralph was able to reason out what was going on.

The hand car was unguided. Someone was aboard, however, but helpless or unable to operate it. Unmistakable demonstrations of its occupancy were furnished in the repetition of the cries that had at first pierced the air, though less frenzied and vivid now than at the start.

Finally seeking and finding the dead level at the exact centre of the tunnel, the hand car appeared to have come to a stop. Ralph shook himself together and proceeded for some little distance forward. He was guided by the sound of low wailings and sobs. He landed finally against the end of the hand car.

“Hello, there!” he challenged.

“O-oh! who is it?” was blubbered out wildly. “O-oh, mister! I did not do it. Teddy Nolan gave it a shove, and away it went-boo-hoo!”

Ralph read the enigma promptly. Mischievous boys at play beyond the north end of the tunnel had been responsible for the sensational descent of the hand car. He groped about it now and discovered a tiny form clinging to the boxed-up gearing in the centre of the car.

“You stay right still where you are,” ordered Ralph, as he located the handles of the car and began pumping for speed.

“Oh, yes, sir, I will.”

“It’s probably too late to think of heading off or overtaking those fellows,” decided Ralph, “but I’ve got to get this hand car out of harm’s way.”

It was no easy work, single handed working the car up the slant, but Ralph made it finally. He found a watchman dozing in the little shanty near the entrance to the tunnel. The man was oblivious to the fact of the hand car episode, and of course the same as to the two men who had doubtless long since escaped from the tunnel and were now safe from pursuit. Ralph did not waste any time questioning him. As he was ditching the hand car the ragged urchin who had made a slide for life into the tunnel took to his heels and scampered away.

The young railroader thought next of the paymaster. Ralph made a sharp run of it on foot through the tunnel. He did not find Mr. Little where he had left him, but came across him sitting on a bench at the first flagman’s crossing, evidently patiently waiting for his return.

“Well, what luck,” challenged Mr. Little.

“None at all,” reported Ralph, and recited the events of the past fifteen or twenty minutes.

“That’s pretty lively going,” commented Mr. Little, looking Ralph over with an approving and interested glance. “I managed to limp this far. I’ve wrenched my foot. I don’t think it amounts to much, but it is quite painful. I’ll rest here a bit and see if it doesn’t mend.”

“Shall I help you to the house, Mr. Little?” suggested Ralph.

“Maybe-a little later. I want to know about this business first-the smashed window and those burglars. Come, sit down here on the bench with me and tell me all about it, Fairbanks.”

“They are not burglars,” asserted Ralph.

“What are they, then?”

“What I hurriedly hinted to you some time back-spies.”

“Spies?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I had better tell you the whole story, Mr. Little.”

“That’s it, Fairbanks.”

Ralph began with the queer-acting trio who had first attracted his suspicions several days previous. He did not leave out the details of his interview with the assistant superintendent at Rockton.

“Why, Fairbanks,” exclaimed the paymaster, arising to his feet in positive excitement, “this is a pretty serious business.”

“It strikes me that way, sir.”

“If these two men were not incidental burglars, and nothing is missing at the house, they were after information.”

“Instead of booty, exactly,” responded Ralph, in a tone of conviction.

“And if that is true,” continued the paymaster, still more wrought up, “they show a system of operation that means some big design in their mind. Give me the help of your shoulder, Fairbanks. I’ve got to get to the house and to my telephone right away.”

A detour of the walled-in runway was necessary in order that they might reach Mr. Little’s home. The paymaster limped painfully. Ralph himself winced under the weight of his hand placed upon his shoulder, but he made no complaint. His right arm was growing stiff and the fingers of that hand he had noticed were covered with blood.

By the time they reached the paymaster’s home, his family had returned. Mr. Little led Ralph at once to the library and sank into his armchair at the desk.

“Why,” he exclaimed after a glance at Ralph, “you are hurt, too.”

“Oh, a mere trifle,” declared the young engineer with apparent carelessness.

“No, it’s something serious-worth attending to right away,” insisted the paymaster, and he called to his wife, introduced Ralph, and Mrs. Little led him out to the kitchen.

In true motherly fashion she seated him on a splint bottomed chair at the sink, got a basin of hot water and some towels, some lint and a bottle of liniment, and proceeded to attend to his needs like an expert surgeon.

Where Ralph’s hand had swept the steel rail when his assailant in the tunnel had knocked him off his footing, one arm had doubled up under him, his fingers sweeping a bunch of metal splinters. These had criss-crossed the entire back of his hand. Once mended up, Ralph was most solicitous, however, to work his arm freely, fearing a wrench or injury that might temporarily disable him from road duty.

“I’ve got the superintendent over the ’phone,” said Mr. Little, as Ralph reëntered the library. “He’s due at an important lodge meeting, and can’t get here until after nine o’clock. See here, Fairbanks,” with a glance at the injured hand which Ralph kept to his side in an awkward way, “you’d better get home and put that arm in a sling.”

“I think myself I’d better have a look at it,” acknowledged Ralph. “It feels pretty sore around the shoulder.”

“You have a telephone at your house?” inquired the paymaster.

“Yes, sir.”

“I may want to call you up. If I don’t, I feel pretty sure the superintendent will, when we have talked over affairs.”

Mr. Little insisted on his hired man hitching up the family horse to drive Ralph home. Mrs. Fairbanks at a glance read pain and discomfort in her son’s face as he entered the sitting room. Ralph set her fears at rest with a hasty explanation. Then after resting a little he told her all about his adventures of the evening.

“It seems as if a railroader must take a double risk all the time,” she said in a somewhat regretful tone.

“It’s a part of the business to take things as they come, mother,” observed Ralph. “It’s a fight nowadays in every line where there is progress. The Great Northern is in the right, and will win, and it is my duty to help in the battle.”

When he came to look over his injured arm Ralph found a pretty bad bruise near the shoulder. His mother declared that it would need attention for some days to come.

“By which you mean, I suppose,” remarked Ralph with a smile, “that you want to coddle me off duty. Can’t be done, mother. I must stay on deck as long as I can pull a lever. Ouch!”

Ralph winced as he happened to give his arm a twist.

“You may change your mind by morning, my son,” observed Mrs. Fairbanks, with a slight motherly triumph in her tone.

When Ralph arose the next day he remembered those words. His arm was so stiff he could scarcely bend it at the elbow, and his hand was badly swollen. He had just finished breakfast when there came a ring at the telephone, which Ralph answered.

“That you, Fairbanks?” sounded the voice of the paymaster.

“Yes, Mr. Little.”

“How is that arm of yours this morning?”

“Not quite as well as I would like it to be.”

“I called you up to tell you that you will probably hear from the general superintendent this forenoon,” continued Mr. Little.

“About last night’s affair I suppose?”

“In a line with that, yes. He was with me for over three hours last night, and he’s pretty well stirred up. Your injured arm will be a good excuse for canceling your run for a few days.”

“But I have no idea of canceling my run,” declared Ralph. “I’ll have that arm in working shape when the Overland pulls out today.”

“I’m giving you a hint, that’s all,” answered the paymaster. “I feel pretty sure the superintendent intends to schedule you for special duty.”