Ralph, the Train Dispatcher; Or, The Mystery of the Pay Car

  CHAPTER XIII

  "HOLD THE LIMITED MAIL!"

  Ralph pressed closer to his loophole of observation at the amazingannouncement of Grizzly, the traitorous train dispatcher.

  "A wreck, you say?" observed Mason, in a dubious and faint-hearted toneof voice.

  "Oh, nobody will get hurt," declared Grizzly lightly. "What's the matterwith you? Haven't you got any nerve? I said there was a thousand apiecein this, didn't I?"

  "I know you did."

  "So, don't weaken about the knees when I give the word, but do just as Itell you. This affair to-night is a mere flyspeck to what's coming alongin a week."

  "Suppose--suppose we're found out?" suggested Mason.

  "We get out, isn't that all? And we get out with good friends to takecare of us, don't we?"

  "I suppose that's so," admitted Mason, but he shifted about in his seatas if he was a good deal disturbed.

  Grizzly glanced again at the clock. Then he returned to his instrument.In a minute or two his fingers worked the key. Ralph watched andlistened with all his might. What the operator did was to notify thedispatcher at Wellsville that he might go off duty, signingheadquarters. Before he did this he spoke a few quick words that Ralphdid not catch. Mason had selected some tools from his bag, and at oncewent nimbly aloft among the cable wires.

  Ralph heard Mason fussing among the wires. He could only surmise whatthe two men were up to. The way he figured it out was that Mason had cutthe wires running from the north branch through the relay intoheadquarters. He had thus completely blocked all messages from or to thenorth branch.

  Mason came back to the operating room looking flustered and nervous.

  "Nothing open north?" inquired Grizzly.

  "Not on the Preston branch."

  "That's right. We can splice 'em up again after two o'clock. Things willdo their happening between now and then, and we leave no trace."

  "See here, Grizzly," pleaded Mason in a spasmodic outburst of agitation;"what's the deal?"

  "What good will it do you to know?"

  "Well, I want to."

  "All right; there's to be a runaway. There's an old junk engine downbeyond Wellsville doing some dredging work, with a construction crew.She's to be fired along."

  "What for?" inquired Mason, his eyes as big as saucers.

  "For instance," jeered Grizzly, with a disagreeable laugh.

  "Where's she to run to?"

  The operator went to a map tacked to the wall. He ran his finger sorapidly over it that, the intent Mason standing between, Ralph could notclearly make out the route indicated.

  "Nobody hurt, you see," remarked Grizzly, in an offhanded way. "Thereisn't another wheel running on that branch this side of Preston."

  "No, but the feeders and cut-ins? Along near Preston the Limited mailruns twenty miles since they've been bridging the main at Finley Gap."

  "She must take her chances, then," observed Grizzly coolly. "Don't getworried, son. The men working this deal know their business, and don'twant to get in jail."

  "What--what is there for me to do." inquired Mason, acting like a manwho had been persuaded to a course that had unnerved and distressed him.

  "Set those wires back just as they were, when I give you the word."

  "Say, if you don't mind, I'll go somewhere and get a bracer. I'm feelingsort of squeamish."

  Grizzly regarded the speaker with a contemptuous look in hismanifestation of weakness, but he made no remark, and Mason left theroom. Ralph from his point of observation watched him descend the stairsand close the door after him as he went out into the storm, faced in thedirection of the town.

  The young railroader started down the cleat ladder, when Grizzly cameout of the operating room. He looked thoughtful, as if he was uneasy athis comrade wandering off. As the lower door closed after him, Ralphdecided that he was bent on joining Mason in his search for "a bracer,"and that now was his chance.

  There flashed through the brain of Ralph the situation complete. A wreckwas to happen, why and exactly where he could only guess. Clearlyoutlined in his mind, however, was the route ahead and beyond. By arapid exertion of memory he could place every train on the road nowmaking its way through the storm-laden night towards Stanley Junction.The Great Northern spread out in a quick mental picture like a map.

  Ralph decided what to do, and he did not waste a second. He was down thecleat ladder and up the stairs and into the operating room in a jiffy.His thought was to give the double danger signal to headquarters andcall for the immediate presence of the head operator or the chiefdispatcher himself, if on duty.

  It took him a minute or two to get the exact bearings of theinstruments. At headquarters he was entirely familiar with the rheostat,wheat-stone bridge, polarized relays, pole changers and ground switches,but the station outfit was not so elaborate, the in table being providedonly with the old relay key and sounder. His finger on the key, tappingthe double danger challenge for attention, Ralph felt himself seizedfrom behind.

  With a whirl he was sent spinning across the room and came to a halt,his back against the out table, facing Grizzly. The latter had returnedto the operating room suddenly and silently. His dark, scowling face wasfilled with suspicion.

  "What's this? Aha, I know you!" spoke the operator. "How did you comehere?" and he advanced to seize the intruder. Ralph read that the fellowguessed that he was trapped. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes,and the young railroader knew that he was in a dangerous fix.

  One hand of Grizzly had gone to his side coat pocket, as if in search ofa weapon. His shoulders egan to crouch. He was more than a match forRalph in strength, and the latter did not know how soon his comradeMason might return.

  Ralph was standing with his back to the operating table. He put hishands behind him, quietly facing Grizzly, and let his right hand rest onthe key. Carefully he opened the key and had clicked west twice when,quick as lightning, Grizzly jumped at him.

  "Stop monkeying with that instrument!" he yelled. "You spy!"

  There was a struggle, and Ralph did his best to beat off his powerfuland determined opponent, but he tripped across a stool and went flat onhis back on the floor. The operator was upon him in a moment. His stronghands pinned Ralph's arms outspread.

  "You keep quiet if you know what's healthy for you," warned Grizzly."You're Fairbanks?"

  "Yes, that is my name," acknowledged Ralph.

  "And you've been watching us, and you was put up to it. Say, how much doyou know and how many have you told about it?"

  Ralph was silent. Just then there was a stamping up the stairs. Masoncame blustering in.

  "No lights ahead. I guess the stores are all shut up," he began, andintercepted himself with a stare at Ralph and a vivid:

  "Hello!"

  "Don't move!" ordered the telegraph operator in an irascible tone ofvoice. "We're in it deep, it seems. Hand over that bunch of rope nearthe stove, Mason."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Cut for it. I know this fellow, and he isn't here for nothing. Ourgame's blown, or it will be. You needn't squirm," he directed at Ralph."There's two of us now."

  Ralph's hands were tied in front of him and his feet secured, as well.It was only half-heartedly, however, that Mason assisted. He was paleand scared.

  "Throw him across those blamed instruments, so they will keep quiet,"ordered Grizzly.

  Ralph was roughly thrown upon the table, face downward, so that therelay was just under his waist. His weight against the armature stoppedthe clicking of the sounder. The two men grouped together in a corner,conversing rapidly and excitedly in undertones.

  As luck would have it, Ralph's left hand was in such a position that itjust touched the key. He opened the key and pretended to be strugglingquite a little.

  Grizzly came over and gave him a push in the ribs.

  "You keep quiet, or I'll find a way to make you," he said, with a fiercescowl.

  Ralph became passive again. As the conspirators resumed theirconversati
on, however, he began to telegraph softly on the west mainline, which was clear. His objective point was Tipton.

  It was here, within the next hour, that the Limited mail would arriveand, farther on, take the Preston cut-off for twenty miles, unlessstopped. The relay being shut off by his weight, there was no noise fromthe sounder, and he sent so slowly that the key was noiseless. Ralph didnot know on whom he was breaking in, but he kept on. He told the exactstate of affairs, repeated the message twice, and trusted to luck. Thenhis last clickings went over the wire:

  "T.B.I. T.I.S.--Hold the Limited Mail. Answer quick."