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CHAPTER XVI
ZEPH DALLAS AND HIS “MYSTERY”
“Whistling language?” repeated Fred Porter. “Is there one?”
“Aha! didn’t I say I was going to show you something you never heard of before? You bet there is a whistling language!” chuckled Zeph – “and I’m now about to demonstrate it to you. You see these two boys? Well, they are natives of Gomera, the smallest of the Canary Islands. They were raised in a district where at times there is no living thing within sight, and the vast wilderness in the winding mountains is broken only by the crimson flower of the cactus growing in the clifts of the rock.”
“You talk like a literary showman, Zeph Dallas,” declared Fred.
“Well, I’m telling the story as I get it, ain’t I?” demanded Zeph in an injured tone and with a sharp look at Fred, as if he suspected that he was being guyed. “Anyhow, I want to explain things so you’ll understand.”
“Go right ahead, Zeph,” insisted Ralph encouragingly, “we’re interested.”
“Well, up among those big stone terraces is the whistling race. They are able to converse with one another at a distance of three miles.”
“That’s pretty strong,” observed Fred. “But make it three miles.”
“A Silvando will signal a friend he knows to be in a certain distant locality. He does it by setting his fore fingers together at a right angle in his mouth, just as you’ll see these two Canaries do in a minute or two. An arrow of piercing sounds shoots across the ravine.”
“Arrow is good – shoots is good!” whispered Fred, nudging Ralph.
“There is a moment’s pause – ” continued Zeph.
“Oh, he’s read all this in some book!” declared Fred.
“Then there comes a thin almost uncanny whistle from far away. Conversation begins, and as the sounds rise and fall, are shrill or drawn, so they are echoed. Then comes the ghostly reply, and then question and answer follows. They talk – all right. Travelers say so, and a lot of scientific fellows are now on the track of this strange tribe to investigate them before civilization makes of their talk a dead language. Kara – ready!” called out Zeph to the boy at the bush. “Karo – attention!”
“Sare,” answered the little fellow, his bright twinkling eyes full of intelligence.
“Ask him how many!” said Zeph “ – see?” and he touched himself, the boy and Ralph and Fred with his forefinger in turn.
Out rang a series of rising interrogatory sounds. There was a pause. Then from the boy stationed at the bush came quick responsive toots – one, two, three, four.
“Tell Kara to bring you this – see, this?” and Zeph stooped down and touched the sodded yard with his hand. Karo whistled again. Immediately Kara wheeled, stooped also, and was at their side in an instant, tendering a handful of grass.
“Say, this is odd all right,” confessed Fred thoughtfully.
“Tell Kara to climb a tree next,” spoke Zeph. More “whistle talk,” and agile as a monkey Kara was aloft, making dizzying whirls among the branches of an oak nearby. “I tell you, it would stun you to watch these little fellows at play. It’s like a piccolo or a calliope to hear them talk – yes, sir, talking just as knowingly as we do.”
“Who are they, anyway?” spoke Fred curiously?
“I’ve told you – Canaries.”
“Yes, but where did you pick them up?”
“That’s a secret. You see,” responded Zeph, looking duly wise and mysterious, “those boys were imported to this country by a peculiar old man, who wanted servants around him who weren’t gabbing about his affairs and asking him questions all the time. Well, he’s got them, hasn’t he? I’m working for that man, or rather for a friend of his. Detective work,” continued Zeph, rather proudly. “I’ve told Ralph. These two boys have been shut up in the house for two months. They just pined for fresh air, and trees – oh! trees are their stronghold. When I started out with them they made for the first tree like birds for a roost. I have taken them out for an airing, and I ran down here to report to Ralph how I was getting on, and brought them along with me for the novelty of the thing.”
“Do they live near here?” inquired Ralph.
“No,” answered Zeph, “we had to come by rail. I can’t tell you where they live, but it’s on a branch of the Great Northern. I’ve got to get back to-night. We’ve had our supper, Ralph. I just wanted to settle up the bills I owed you. I’ll say good-bye to your mother and get to the depot.”
Zeph and his charges trooped to the kitchen door. Zeph spoke a few words to Mrs. Fairbanks. His companions bowed her a polite and graceful adieu, and Ralph accompanied their former boarder to the street.
“See here, Ralph,” said Zeph to the young engineer in parting, “I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t tell you everything.”
“That’s all right, Zeph.”
“But honestly, I’ve solemnly agreed not to lisp a word about what I am really about or the people concerned in it.”
“That’s all right, too,” declared Ralph.
“I’ll say this, though,” resumed Zeph: “I’m working on a strange and serious case. It’s no play or fooling. I’m getting big pay. I may do a big thing in the end, and when I do, if I do, I’m coming straight to tell you all about it.”
Ralph watched Zeph and his charges disappear down the street with a great deal of curiosity and wonderment in his mind. A great many lively and unusual incidents were coming to the front recently, but this one was certainly enough out of the ordinary to give him food for profound thought.
Ralph rejoined Fred in the garden, and took him into the house and introduced him to his mother. Mrs. Fairbanks won the heart of the manly young fellow, as she did the love of all of her son’s friends.
It was a pleasant, happy little coterie, that which sat down at the table soon afterwards to enjoy one of Mrs. Fairbanks’ famous meals.
“I’m ashamed!” declared Fred, after his seventh hot biscuit with freshly churned butter that made his mouth water, “but eating houses and hotels, Mrs. Fairbanks, make a roving, homeless fellow like me desperate, and if a third helping of that exquisite apple sauce isn’t out of order, I’ll have another small fish.”
“I’m spoiled for regular cooking, Bessie,” declared Fogg to his wife. “Mrs. Fairbanks is fattening us till we’ll be of no use at all.”
“You are all flatterers,” said Mrs. Fairbanks warningly, but with a pleased smile.
“I’ll take another piece of cake, ma’am, providing you’ll promise me the little exercise of helping you wash the dishes afterwards,” spoke Fred.
He interested the widow with his animated, interested talk as he bustled around the kitchen, wearing a big apron while drying the dishes. Then when this task was completed, he and Ralph went out to the little summer house and comfortably seated themselves.
“Now then,” remarked the young railroader with a pleasant smile, “now for your confession, Fred.”
“No, sir,” objected his comrade vociferously, “I’ve done nothing that’s wrong to confess. It will be an explanation.”
“All right,” agreed Ralph, “open the throttle and start the train.”
At that moment there was an interruption. A chubby, undersized boy came swiftly through the gateway. He was advancing up the steps of the house when Ralph halted him.
“Hi, there, Davis!” he challenged. “What’s wanted?”
“Oh, you there, Fairbanks!” responded Ned Davis, the red-headed call boy for the roundhouse of the Great Northern, familiarly known as “Torchy.” “Extra orders for you and Fogg – you’re to take out a special to-night.”
CHAPTER XVII
IN WIDENER’S GAP
There was always a spice of novelty and excitement for the young engineer in running a special. Besides that, extra orders meant pay and a half, sometimes double pay, with twenty-four hours’ rest after it, if the special run came after midnight.
Ralph arose from his seat in the summer-house, telling Ned Davis that Fogg and himself would report at the roundhouse at once.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Porter,” he said to his guest. “We’ll have to postpone our talk until to-morrow.”
“Duty call, I see,” returned Fred. “Well, there’s no urgency, now that I’ve found out you don’t consider me some hideous impostor of the old story book kind. I’ll go as far with you as a hotel, and tell you what I have to say after this trip.”
“You’ll camp right here at the Fairbanks cottage until I return,” peremptorily declared Ralph. “My mother would be lonesome if there wasn’t a boy somewhere about the house. Zeph is gone and my other friends, and you will be good company.”
“I’m only too willing, if it’s entirely agreeable,” said Fred, and so it was settled.
Fogg grumbled a good deal when Ralph told him of the extra call. He declared that he had just succeeded in teaching the baby to say “All aboard!” looked at the sky and predicted the biggest storm of the season, and was cross generally until he climbed aboard No. 999. Then Ralph heard him talking to the well-groomed steel steed as if it was some pet racer, and he anxious and glad to put it through its paces.
“What’s the run, Fairbanks?” asked the fireman, as Ralph returned from the roundhouse office.
“Nothing very interesting. Special sleeper, some convention crowd for Bridgeport, came in on the north branch. We’ve got to pick our way on our own schedule.”
“Huh! thought it must be a treasure train, or the pay car at the least!” snorted Fogg contemptuously, but thoroughly good-natured under the surface.
When they backed down to the depot, Ralph was handed his flimsy orders. No. 999 was given standard special lights, with the usual markers at the rear of the sleeping car, but no one on platform charge. The coach had a conductor, but he barely showed himself, and went inside, where all the curtains were drawn and passengers evidently gone to sleep.
“I told you it was going to rain,” spoke Fogg, as they cleared the limits and got ready for a spurt. “All schedule cancelled where we can get clear tracks, I suppose? All right, let’s see what 999 can do on slippery rails.”
No. 999 did famously, as she always did under the guidance of the vigilant young engineer. Ralph was learning a good deal lately, and his mind was always strictly on the business of the moment when at the throttle. He was learning that there was a science in running a locomotive a good deal deeper than merely operating throttle, brake and lever automatically. There was a way to conserve the steam energy and reserve wide-open tactics for full pressure that he had found out, which enabled him to spurt when the chance came, at no cost of exhaustion later. He knew the gauges by heart, how to utilize the exhaust, and worked something along the line of the new superheated steam theory.
The night had set in very dark and very stormy. They had nothing to look out for, however, on the out track except an accommodation that had started two hours previous. No. 999 had a light load, and she sped along without a jar. The wires took care of her. By nine o’clock they were twenty miles “to the good” on regular schedule basis.
After that it was slower progress. The wind had arisen to a hurricane, the rain came down in torrents, and as they passed Winston they began to get in among the hills, where there was a series of intricate and dangerous curves.
“It’s nearly a waterspout,” observed Fogg, as the rain swept against the cab as if driven from a full pressure hose, and they could feel the staunch locomotive quiver as it breasted great sweeps of the wind. “I don’t like that,” he muttered, as a great clump came against the cab curtain. And he and his engineer both knew what it was from past experience.
“One of those young landslides,” spoke Ralph.
“The second in a half-an-hour,” declared Fogg. “It’s clear mud, but sometime in one of these storms we’ll get a big drop of rock, and there’ll be mischief afoot.”
Ralph slowed as they entered a long stretch known as Widener’s Gap. It was a pull up hill. Besides that, Widener was only two miles ahead, and the curves were so sharp and frequent that they could not catch the semaphore at any distance.
Both engineer and fireman were under an intense strain, and Ralph kept a keen lookout from his cab window. Fogg was doing the same. Suddenly he uttered a great shout. It was echoed by Ralph, for there was cause for excitement.
“A tree!” yelled Fogg.
Ralph set the air and pulled the lever in a flash. What the gleaming headlight of No. 999 had shown, however, they were upon in a leap. They could feel a grinding jar, but the pilot had evidently swept the obstacle aside. They could hear the branches sweep the top of the engine. Then there came a warning sound.
Bumpety-bump, – bump-bump! The tree, uprooted from the gap side by the rain and the wind, had descried half a circle, it seemed, when shifted by the pilot. Its big end had rolled under the coach. From the feeling the young engineer could guess what had happened.
“Shut her off!” shouted Fogg.
“The coach has jumped the track!” echoed Ralph quickly.
His heart was in his mouth as he made every exertion to bring the locomotive to a quick stop. No. 999 acted splendidly, but it was impossible to slow down under two hundred feet.
“Both trucks off – she’s toppling!” yelled Fogg, with a backward glance.
Each instant Ralph waited for the crash that would announce a catastrophe. It did not come. The coach swayed and careened, pounding the sleepers set on a sharp angle and tugging to part the bumpers. Ralph closed the throttle and took a glance backwards for the first time.
“The coach is safe, Mr. Fogg,” he spoke. “Get back and see how badly the passengers are mixed up.”
“There’s nothing coming behind us?” asked the fireman.
“No, but tell the conductor to set the light back as far as he can run.”
“Allright.”
“The Night Express!” gasped Ralph the next moment, in a hushed whisper, as he caught the faint echo of a signal whistle ahead of them in the distance.
An alarming thought came into his mind. Nothing could menace them ahead on the out track and nothing was due behind, but the coach attached to No. 999 stood on a tilt clear across the in track.
Along those rails in ten minutes’ time, unaware of the obstruction, the night express would come thundering down the grade at a forty-mile clip around the sharp curves of Widener’s Gap.
“It’s 38. She’s due, entering Widener,” breathed Ralph. “Yes,” with a glance at the cab clock, “and just on time. Mr. Fogg,” he shouted after his fireman, leaping to the ground, “get the people out of that coach – 38 is coming.”
“The Night Express,” cried Fogg hoarsely. “I never thought of it.”
Ralph tore one of the rear red tender lights from its place. He started down the out rails on a dead run. His only hope now was of reaching the straight open stretch past the last curve in open view of Widener. To set the warning signal short of that would be of no avail. No. 38 could not possibly see it in time, coming at full speed, to avoid a smash-up.
In a single minute the young engineer was drenched to the skin. It was all that he could do to keep from being blown from his footing. He fairly counted the seconds as he shot forward, sprinting to the limit on that slippery, flooded roadbed. He could not restrain a shout of relief and hope as he turned the last curve.
“Widener – 38!” he gasped.
The station lamps were visible, a mile distant. Somewhat nearer, a blur of white radiance amid the dashing rain, was the headlight of No. 38 showing that she was coming at momentarily increasing speed. Ralph aimed to run nearer to the air line stretch to plant the signal. Suddenly his feet tripped and he went headlong. The breath seemed knocked out of his body as he landed across the ties of the brief trestle reach, which he had forgotten all about in his excitement. The lantern, flung wide from his grasp, struck one rail, smashed to pieces, and the lamp went out as it dropped with a flare into the deep gully beneath.
CHAPTER XVIII
AT 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.
“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 Express whiz 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 № 38. had moved up to the scene of the wreck. This 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 for the 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 heroic dash – 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 softly accompanying 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.’”
