Kitabı oku: «Ralph on the Engine: or, The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XXV
TOO LATE
Two days later Ralph went down the line of the little railroad to where it met the tracks of the Great Northern. Mr. Gibson had sent him with some instructions to the men at work there, and at the request of the young fireman had assigned him to work at that point.
This consisted in checking up the construction supplies delivered by rail. Ralph had a motive in coming to this terminus of the Short Line Route. The information he had gained from the old, crippled railroader, Amos Greenleaf, had set him to thinking. He found Zeph Dallas working industriously, but said nothing about his plans until the next day.
At the noon hour he secured temporary leave of absence from work for Zeph and himself, and went to find his friend.
Zeph was a good deal surprised when Ralph told him that they were to have the afternoon for a ramble, but readily joined his comrade.
“Saw some friends of yours hanging around here yesterday,” said the farmer boy.
“That so?” inquired Ralph.
“Yes, Slump and Bemis. Guess they were after work or food, and they sloped the minute they set eyes on me. Say, where are you bound for anyway, Ralph?”
“For Wilmer.”
“What for?”
“I want to look around the river near there. The truth is, Zeph, I fancy I have discovered a clew to that missing freight car.”
“What!” cried Zeph excitedly. “You don’t mean car No. 9176?”
“I mean just that,” assented Ralph. “Here, let us find a comfortable place to sit down, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
Ralph selected a spot by a fence lining the railroad right of way. Then he narrated the details of his interview with Amos Greenleaf.
“Say,” exclaimed Zeph, “I believe there’s something to this. Every point seems to tally somehow to what information the car finder gave me, don’t you think so? Besides, in investigating the matter, I heard about this same wreck. And five years ago? Ralph, this is worth looking up, don’t you think so?”
Zeph was fairly incoherent amid his excitement. He could not sit still, and arose to his feet and began walking around restlessly.
“You see, it is a long time since the car disappeared,” said Ralph, “and we may not be able to find any trace of it. The car finder, in his investigations, must have heard of this wreck. Still, as you say, it is worth following up the clew, and that is why I got a leave from work for the afternoon.”
“Hello,” said Zeph, looking in among the bushes abruptly, “some one in there? No, I don’t see anybody now, but there was a rustling there a minute or two ago.”
“Some bird or animal, probably,” said Ralph. “Come on, Zeph, we will go to the bridge and start on our investigations.”
The river near Wilmer was a broad stream. It was quite deep and had a swift current. The boys started down one bank, conversing and watching out. Ralph laughed humorously after a while.
“I fancy this is a kind of a blind hunt, Zeph,” he said. “We certainly cannot expect to find that car lying around loose.”
“Well, hardly, but we might find out where it went to if we go far enough,” declared Zeph. “I tell you, I shall never give it up now if I have to go clear to the end of this river.”
They kept on until quite late in the afternoon, but made no discoveries. They passed a little settlement and went some distance beyond it. Then Ralph decided to return to the railroad camp.
“All right,” said Zeph, “only I quit work to-morrow.”
“What for?”
“To find that car. I say, I’m thirsty. Let us get a drink of water at that old farm house yonder.”
They went to the place in question and were drinking from the well bucket when the apparent owner of the place approached them.
“Won’t you have a cup or a glass, my lads?” he inquired kindly.
“Oh, no, this is all right,” said Ralph.
“On a tramp, are you?” continued the farmer, evidently glad to have someone to talk to.
“In a way, yes,” answered Ralph, and then, a sudden idea struck him, he added: “By the way, you are an old resident here, I suppose?”
“Forty years or more.”
“Do you happen to remember anything of a wreck at the bridge at Wilmer about five years ago?”
“Let me see,” mused the man. “That was the time of the big freshet. Yes, I do remember it faintly. It’s the freshet I remember most though. Enough timber floated by here to build a barn. See that old shed yonder?” and he pointed to a low structure. “Well, I built that out of timber I fished ashore. Lumber yard beyond Wilmer floated into the creek, and all of us along here got some of it.”
“What do you know about the wreck?” asked Ralph.
“Heard about it at the time, that’s all. Sort of connect the freshet with it. That was a great washout,” continued the farmer. “Even sheds and chicken coops floated by. And say, a box car, too.”
“Oh,” cried Zeph, with a start as if he was shot.
“Indeed?” said Ralph, with a suppressed quiver of excitement in his tone.
“Yes. It went whirling by, big and heavy as it was.”
“Say, Mister, you don’t know where that car went to, do you?” inquired Zeph anxiously.
“Yes, I do. I know right where it is now.”
“You do?”
“Yes, old Jabez Kane, ten miles down the creek, got it. He is using it now for a tool shed.”
“Oh!” again cried Zeph, trembling with suspense and hope.
Ralph nudged him to be quiet. He asked a few more questions of the farmer and they left the place.
“Ralph,” cried Zeph wildly, “we’ve found it!”
“Maybe not,” answered the young fireman. “It may not be the same car.”
“But you’re going to find out?”
“It’s pretty late. We had better make a day of it to-morrow.”
“All right, if we can’t attend to it to-day,” said Zeph disappointedly; and then both returned to camp.
Next morning early both started for the creek again. By proceeding across the country diagonally, they saved some distance.
It was about noon when they approached a rickety, old farmhouse which a man had told them belonged to Jabez Kane.
“There it is, there it is,” cried Zeph, as they neared it.
“Yes, there is an old box car in the yard near the creek, sure enough,” said Ralph.
They entered the farm yard. The box of the car they looked at sat flat on the ground. It had been whitewashed several times, it appeared, so they could trace no markings on it. They approached it and stood looking it over when a man came out of the house near by.
“Hey,” he hailed, advancing upon them. “What you trespassing for?”
“Are we?” inquired Ralph, with a pleasant smile. “We mean no harm.”
“Dunno about that,” said the farmer suspiciously. “Was you here last night?”
“Oh, no,” answered Ralph.
“Well, what do you want?”
“I was sort of interested in this old car,” announced Ralph.
“Why so?” demanded Kane.
“Well, we are looking for a car that floated down the creek here about five years ago.”
“For the railroad?” asked the farmer.
“In a way, yes, in a way, no.”
“Does the railroad want to take it away from me?”
“Certainly not. They would like to know, though, if it’s a car of the Southern Air Line and numbered 9176.”
“You’ve got it, lad. This was just that car. What’s the amazing interest in it all of a sudden? Look here,” and he took them around to the other side of the car. “Last night two boys came here; my son saw them hanging around here. Then they disappeared. This morning I found the car that way.”
Ralph and Zeph stared in astonishment. A four-foot space of the boards on the outside of the car had been torn away. At one point there was a jagged break in the inside sheathing. In a flash the same idea occurred to both of them.
“Too late!” groaned poor Zeph. “Some one has been here and the diamonds are gone.”
Ralph was stupefied. He remembered the rustling in the bushes when they were discussing their plans the day previous. He believed that their conversation had been overheard by some one.
Ralph asked the man to send for his son, which he did, and Ralph interrogated him closely. The result was a sure conviction that Ike Slump and Mort Bemis had secured the diamonds hidden in the box car about five years previous.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE MAD ENGINEER
“Well, good-bye, Zeph.”
“Good-bye, Ralph. Another of my wild dreams of wealth gone.”
“Don’t fret about it, Zeph.”
“How can I help it?”
Ralph had decided to return home. He was now fully recuperated, and his vacation period would expire in a few days.
It was the evening of the day when they had discovered the missing box car only to find that others had discovered it before them. Ralph had arranged to flag a freight at the terminus of the Short Line Route and was down at the tracks awaiting its coming.
The freight arrived, Ralph clambered to the cab, waved his hand in adieu to Zeph, and was warmly welcomed by his friends on the engine.
They had proceeded only a short distance when a boy came running down an embankment. So rapid and reckless was his progress that Ralph feared he would land under the locomotive. The lad, however, grasped the step of the cab, and was dragged dangerously near to the wheels. Ralph seized him just in time and pulled him up into the cab.
“Well!” commented the engineer, “it’s a good thing we were going slow. Here, land out as you landed in, kid.”
“Please don’t,” cried the boy, gazing back with tear-filled eyes and trembling all over. “Please let me ride with you.”
“Against the rules.”
“See, there they are!” almost shrieked the boy, pointing to two men who came rushing down the embankment. “Oh, don’t let them get me.”
“Give him a show till I learn his story,” said Ralph to the engineer, so the latter put on steam and the two men were outdistanced.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” panted the boy, clinging close to Ralph.
“Come up on the water tank,” said Ralph, “and I’ll have a talk with you.”
The lad, whom the young fireman had befriended, was a forlorn-looking being. He wore no shoes, was hatless, and had on a coat many sizes too large for him.
“Now then, what’s the trouble?” inquired Ralph, when they were both seated on the water tank.
“Those men were pursuing me,” said the lad.
“What for?”
“I was running away from them. They are my uncles, and they have been very wicked and cruel to me. They want to send me to a reform school to get rid of me, and locked me up. I ran away this morning, but they got trace of me again.”
“What is your name?”
“Earl Danvers. My father died and left them my guardians. They are after the property, I guess.”
“What do you propose to do?”
“Oh, anything to get away from them.”
Ralph talked for quite a while with the boy and learned his entire history. Then he said:
“This is a case for a lawyer. Would you like to come to Stanley Junction with me and have a lawyer look into the matter for you?”
“No. I only want to escape from those bad men.”
“That will follow. You come with me. I will interest myself in your case and see that you are protected.”
“How kind you are – you are the only friend I ever knew,” cried the boy, bursting into tears of gratitude.
Ralph took Earl Danvers home with him when they reached Stanley Junction. His kind-hearted mother was at once interested in the forlorn refugee. They managed to fit him out with some comfortable clothing, and Ralph told him to take a rest of a few days, when he would have him see their lawyer and tell him his story.
Two days later the young fireman reported at the roundhouse for duty, and the ensuing morning started on a new term of service as fireman of the Limited Mail.
The first trip out Griscom was engineer. Ralph noticed that he looked pale and worried. The run to the city was made in a way quite unusual with the brisk and lively veteran railroader. Ralph waited until they were on their way home from the roundhouse that evening. Then he said:
“Mr. Griscom, you have not been your usual self to-day.”
“That’s true, lad,” nodded the engineer gravely.
“Anything the matter especially?”
“Oh, a little extra care on my mind and under the weather a bit besides,” sighed Griscom.
“Can I help you in any way?” inquired Ralph.
“No, lad – we must all bear our own troubles.”
The next day Griscom did not report for duty at train time. A man named Lyle was put on extra duty. Ralph did not know him very well nor did he like him much. He understood that he was a fine engineer but that he had been warned several times for drinking.
As he came into the cab, Ralph noticed that his eyes were dull and shifty, his hands trembled and he bore all the appearance of a man who had been recently indulging in liquor to excess.
As soon as they were out on the road, Lyle began to drink frequently from a bottle he took out of his coat. He became more steady in his movements, and, watching him, Ralph saw that he understood his business thoroughly and was duly attentive to it.
After the wait at the city, however, Lyle came aboard of the locomotive in quite a muddled condition. He was talkative and boastful now. He began to tell of the many famous special runs he had made, of the big salaries he had earned, and of his general proficiency as a first-class engineer.
He ordered full steam on, and by the time they were twenty miles from the city he kept the locomotive going at top notch speed. There was a tremendous head on the cylinders and they ran like a racer. Frogs and target rods were passed at a momentum that fairly frightened Ralph, and it was a wonder to him the way the wheels ground and bounded that they always lit on the steel.
Lyle took frequent drinks from the bottle, which had been replenished. His eyes were wild, his manner reckless, almost maniacal. As they passed signals he would utter a fierce, ringing yell. Ralph crowded over to him.
“Mr. Lyle,” he shouted, “we are ahead of time.”
“Good,” roared the mad engineer, “I’m going to make the record run of the century.”
“If any other train is off schedule, that is dangerous.”
“Let ’em look out for themselves,” chuckled Lyle. “Whoop! pile in the black diamonds.”
“Stop!” almost shrieked Ralph.
Of a sudden he made a fearful discovery. A signal had called for a danger stop where the Great Northern crossed the tracks of the Midland Central. Unheeding the signal, Lyle had run directly onto a siding of the latter railroad and was traversing it at full speed.
“Stop, stop, I say – there’s a car ahead,” cried Ralph.
Lyle gave the young fireman a violent push backwards and forged ahead.
Chug! bang! A frightful sound filled the air. The locomotive had struck a light gondola car squarely, lifting it from the track and throwing it to one side a mass of wreckage. Then on, on sped the engine. It struck the main of the Midland Central.
Ralph grabbed up a shovel.
“Lower speed,” he cried, “or I will strike you.”
“Get back,” yelled Lyle, pulling a revolver from his pocket. “Back, I say, or I’ll shoot. Whoop! this is going.”
Ralph climbed to the top of the tender. He was powerless alone to combat the engineer in his mad fury. A plan came into his mind. The first car attached to the tender was a blind baggage. Ralph sprang to its roof. Then he ran back fast as he could.
The young fireman lost no time, dropping from the roof between platforms. As he reached the first passenger coach he ran inside the car.
Passengers were on their feet, amazed and alarmed at the reckless flight of the train. The conductor and train hands were pale and frightened.
“What’s the trouble?” demanded the conductor, as Ralph rushed up to him.
“A maniac is in charge of the train. He is crazed with drink, and armed. Who of you will join me in trying to overpower him?”
None of the train hands shrank from duty. They followed Ralph to the platform and thence to the top of the forward coach. At that moment new warnings came.
CHAPTER XXVII
A NEW MYSTERY
“Danger,” shouted Ralph. “Quick, men. Do you see ahead there?”
Down the rails a red signal fuse was spluttering. It was quite a distance away, but they would reach it in less than sixty seconds if the present fearful speed of the train was kept up.
“Hear that?” roared the conductor in a hoarse, frightened tone.
Under the wheels there rang out a sharp crack, audible even above the roar of the rushing train – a track torpedo.
Ralph ran across the top of the forward car. As he reached its front end, Lyle turning discovered him.
He set up a wild yell, reached into the tender, seized a big sledgehammer lying there and braced back.
The young fireman was amazed and fairly terrified at his movements, for Lyle began raining blows on lever, throttle and everything in the way of machinery inside of the cab.
Past the red light, blotting it out, sped the train, turning a curve. Ralph anticipated a waiting or a coming train, but, to his relief, the rails were clear. Ahead, however, there was a great glow, and he now understood what the warnings meant.
The road at this point for two miles ran through a marshy forest, and this was all on fire. Ralph gained the tender.
“Back, back!” roared Lyle, facing him, weapon in hand. “She’s fixed to go, can’t stop her now. Whoop!”
With deep concern the young fireman noted the disabled machinery.
Half-way between centers, the big steel bar on the engineer’s side of the locomotive had snapped in two and was tearing through the cab like a flail, at every revolution of the driver to which it was attached.
Just as Ralph jumped down from the tender, the locomotive entered the fire belt – in a minute more the train was in the midst of a great sweeping mass of fire. The train crew, blinded and singed, retreated. Ralph trembled at a sense of the terrible peril that menaced.
Lyle had drawn back from the lever or he would have been annihilated. Then as the fire swept into his face, he uttered a last frightful yell, gave a spring and landed somewhere along the side of the track.
The young fireman was fairly appalled. Such a situation he had never confronted before. The cab was ablaze in a dozen different places. The tops of the cars behind had also ignited. Ralph did not know what to do. Even if he could have stopped the train, it would be destruction to do so now.
Suddenly the locomotive dove through the last fire stretch. Ahead somewhere Ralph caught the fierce blast of a locomotive shrieking for orders. For life or death the train must be stopped.
He flew towards the throttle but could not reach it safely. The great bar threatened death. Twice he tried to reach the throttle and drew back in time to escape the descending bar. At a third effort he managed to slip the latch of the throttle, but received a fearful graze of one hand. Then, exhausted from exertion and excitement, the young fireman saw the locomotive slow down not a hundred yards from a stalled train.
The passenger coaches were soon vacated by the passengers, while the train crew beat out the flames where the cars were on fire.
The Limited Mail made no return trip to Stanley Junction that night. The following morning, however, when the swamp fire had subsided, the train was taken back to the Great Northern and then to terminus.
Lyle, the engineer, was found badly burned and delirious in the swamp, where he would have perished only for the water in which he landed when he jumped from the locomotive cab. He was taken to a hospital.
There was a great deal of talk about the latest exploit of the young fireman of the Limited Mail, and Ralph did not suffer any in the estimation of the railroad people and his many friends.
One evening he came home from an interview with a local lawyer concerning the interests of his young friend, Earl Danvers.
Ralph felt quite sanguine that he could obtain redress for Earl from his heartless relations, and was thinking about it when he discovered his mother pacing up and down the front walk of the house in an agitated, anxious way.
“Why, mother,” said Ralph, “you look very much distressed.”
“I am so, truly,” replied Mrs. Fairbanks. “Ralph, we have met with a great loss.”
“What do you mean, mother?”
“The house has been burglarized.”
“When?”
“Some time during the past three hours. I was on a visit to a sick neighbor, and returned to discover the rear door open. I went inside, and all the papers in the cabinet and some money we had there were gone.”
“The papers?” exclaimed Ralph.
“Yes, every document concerning our claim against Gasper Farrington is missing.”
“But what of Earl Danvers?” inquired Ralph. “Was he away from home?”
“He was when I left, but he must have returned during my absence.”
“How do you know that?” asked Ralph.
“The cap he wore when he went away I found near the cabinet.”
Ralph looked serious and troubled.
“I hope we have not been mistaken in believing Earl to be an honest boy,” he said, and his mother only sighed.
Then Ralph began investigating. The rear door, he found, had been forced open. All the rooms and closets had been ransacked.
“This is pretty serious, mother,” he remarked.
Earl Danvers did not return that day. This troubled and puzzled Ralph. He could not believe the boy to be an accomplice of Farrington, nor could he believe that he was the thief.
Next morning Ralph reported the loss to the town marshal. When he went down the road, he threw off a note where the men were working on the Short Line Route at its junction with the Great Northern. It was directed to Zeph Dallas, and in the note Ralph asked his friend to look up the two uncles of Earl Danvers and learn all he could about the latter.
It was two nights later when Mrs. Fairbanks announced to Ralph quite an important discovery. In cleaning house she had noticed some words penciled on the wall near the cabinet. They comprised a mere scrawl, as if written under difficulty, and ran:
“Earl prisoner. Two boys stealing things in house. Get the old coat I wore.”
“Why, what can this mean?” said Ralph. “Earl certainly wrote this. A prisoner? two boys? the thieves? Get the old coat? He means the one he wore when he came here. What can that have to do with this business? Mother, where is the coat?”
“Why, Ralph,” replied Mrs. Fairbanks, “I sold it to a rag man last week.”
