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

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THE SLUMP "SECRET"

  "Wake up, Ralph."

  The young dispatcher of Stanley Junction jumped out of bed in a bound.He felt that he could have slept half a dozen hours longer, but to everyrailroad man the call "wake up" means duty waits, no delay, and Ralphresponded to the urgent call without hesitation.

  The echo of a series of light tappings on the door and of his mother'svoice mingled with her departing footsteps. He called out:

  "What is it, mother?"

  "A telephone message from the superintendent."

  "Good--something is stirring," reflected Ralph, and hurried hisdressing. "Well, enough has happened since yesterday to interest thepresident of the road himself," he went on, musing. "They wanted somehouse cleaning done, and it has begun in a vigorous way."

  It was early in the afternoon. Just after daybreak that morning Ralphhad reached Stanley Junction on top of a freight car. He had foundGlidden in charge of the situation at the relay station.

  "You've hit the mark, Fairbanks," were his first commendatory words."The assistant superintendent was here for an hour with me after we gotthat rough and tumble message from you down the line."

  "It was a cross tree experiment. Wasn't it a jumble?" inquired Ralph.

  "We pieced it out, got our bearings, and they're spreading the net tocatch some pretty big fish."

  "What of Grizzly and that fellow with him?"

  "Sloped. Adair is after them, though. See here, you get right home andinto your cozy."

  "But I have something of possible importance to tell thesuperintendent."

  "He's gone down the line hot-footed. It will all keep till he calls youup. Left instructions to that effect--'30,' now, and be quick about it!"

  "30" it was, perforce. Ralph had gone through a rough night of it. Hewas pretty well tired out and glad to get to bed. He went there,however, with some exciting thoughts in his mind.

  There had been no solution to the enigma of the piece of broken boxcover flung from the passing freight train through the window of thelittle station. All Ralph could do about that incident was to conjectureblindly.

  It was a queer happening, a suggestive one. Ralph had a fertileimagination. There was a coincidence about the discovery of the queermessage, and things hinged together in a way. Contiguous to that sectionthe chicken farm was located, and Glen Palmer, at least his grandfather,had seemingly linked up with the conspirators against the welfare of theGreat Northern road once or twice before. Ralph could not conceive whythat message had been written. It was a new mystery, but it had come sosecretly upon the heels of a bigger and more important one, that therewas neither time nor opportunity to explore it just at present.

  Mrs. Fairbanks, like the true anxious mother that she was, greeted Ralphon his arrival at home. She had not gone to bed all night, and she nowinsisted on his eating an early breakfast and taking a needed rest.Tired out as he was, however, once alone in his own room Ralph tookthis, the first quiet opportunity, to look over the memorandum book thathad fallen from the coat pocket of the train wrecker.

  Ralph's eyes expanded and he uttered one or two subdued whistles ofastonishment as he delved among the contents of his find. Some pencilednotes and a letter in the memorandum book told a great deal--in fact, somuch and so clearly and unmistakably, that Ralph could hardly go tosleep thinking over the importance of his discoveries.

  They had to wait, however, till he could again see the superintendent.Now, as Ralph was roused up out of sleep by a telephone call from thatvery official, his active mind was again filled with the theme of thememorandum book and what it had revealed to him.

  When he got down stairs Ralph found that word had come for him to reportto the office of the road as promptly as possible. His mother had anappetizing lunch spread on the dining room table, and the lad did fulljustice to it.

  He was thoughtful and busy formulating in his mind just what he wouldreport at headquarters, and had proceeded less than half a dozen squaresfrom home when passing an alley his name was called. Looking beyond thestreet Ralph recognized Ike Slump. He wore a very mysterious face and hewas urgently beckoning to Ralph. The latter was about to proceed on hisway with a gesture of annoyance, when Slump shouted out:

  "You'll be sorry if you don't see me for a minute or two."

  "Well, what is it?" inquired Ralph, moving a few feet towards hischallenger.

  "I need five dollars."

  "Oh, you do?"

  "Yes, bad. I want you to give it to me."

  "That's cool."

  "I've got to get out of town. You'd better let me go."

  "I don't see how I am preventing you," said Ralph.

  "You will, when I explain."

  "Then be quick about it. I have no time to waste."

  "Neither have I," remarked Slump, with an uneasy glance towards thestreet. "To be short and sweet, I know Glen Palmer."

  Ralph started a trifle at this. Slump spoke the name with a knowing lookin his eyes and a sidelong leer that was sinister.

  "Well, what of it?" demanded Ralph.

  "I thought I'd seen him before the day I met him up at the yards. Iracked my brain to recall him. This morning it all came to me."

  "What do you suppose I care about your knowing him?" inquired Ralph.

  "Just this: he's a friend of yours, a sort of pet. I understand youstarted him in the chicken farming business, so you must have someinterest in him. All right, I can snip him out of his position of glorydouble quick," asserted Ike, in a malevolent and threatening way.

  "Go ahead, what are you driving at?" asked Ralph as calmly as he could.

  "Five dollars--that's what it will cost you to keep your friend frombeing exposed. Five dollars, and I bury the secret fathoms deep."

  "In other words," said Ralph, trying hard to suppress his feelings, "youwant to blackmail me?"

  "Oh, no," assented Slump, "I simply want to sell this photograph," andhe drew a card from his pocket. "I went to heaps of trouble to get it.It shows that I did see Glen Palmer before. It was where we were bothlocked up in jail," shamelessly confessed Slump.

  Ralph was a good deal taken aback. The words of Slump and the photographhe extended rather took the young railroader's breath away. The portraitwas that of a boy dressed in a convict suit, a number on his cap, andthe background showed the surroundings of a prison room.

  "It's too bad," spoke Ralph involuntarily. He was thinking of hismisplaced trust in the Palmer boy. All his dark suspicions concerningthe old grandfather and the conspirators were instantly revived in themind of Ralph.

  "Ain't it, though?" smirked Slump. "Is it worth the price?"

  "No!" suddenly shouted Ralph, in a tone so stern and ringing that thediscomfited Slump fell back several feet. "You miserable jail bird andswindler, I wouldn't help you on your wretched career of crime for fivecents let alone five dollars. Furthermore, Glen Palmer may have been injail, but I won't believe he belonged there till I have the proofs."

  "Oh, won't you?" sneered Ike. "All right. Don't want to reform him, eh?Won't give the downtrodden and oppressed a chance. You're a heavyphilanthropist, you are, Mr. Ralph--let go!"

  Slump took a sudden whirl. From behind a fence there suddenly pounceddown upon him a towering form. Ralph was as much surprised as Slump torecognize Bob Adair, the road detective.

  The diligent officer gave Slump one or two more whirls, holding on tohis coat collar, that made him shriek with affright. Then he threw himreeling ten feet away.

  "I gave you two hours to get out of town this morning," he observed."Now then it's two minutes to head straight for the limits, or I'll lockyou up as a vagrant."

  Ike picked up his fallen cap on the run. He darted down the alley in aflash.

  "I don't know but what I would have liked to find out something morefrom him," remarked Ralph.

  "Oh, I overheard the subject of your conversation," said Adair--"aboutthat missing boy, Glen Palmer, I suppose you mean?"

  "Missing--is he
missing, Mr. Adair?"

  "Since the day after you told me about him, and his grandfather and thequeer company he kept," replied Adair. "I went down to the chicken farmto find that young Palmer had sold it out to a neighbor for a song andhad vanished."

  "Why, that is queer," commented Ralph. "I fancied he had got a new leaseof life when I started him in business."

  "Decidedly mysterious, the whole affair," added the road detective."That will all come out when we see the superintendent. We're both dueat his office."

  "I was just going there," said Ralph.

  "And I was on my way to meet you," explained Adair.

  They walked on together for a short distance. Suddenly Adair drew out abulky pocket book well stuffed with papers. He selected a folded yellowsheet.

  "Here's something that belongs to you," he said. "There's a good deal togo over, so get that off our minds. Glidden handed it to me this noon."

  "What is it?" asked Ralph.

  "A telegram."

  "So it is. Why--"

  Ralph paused there. If he had been astonished at the discovery of theboard message back at the little station, the present scrap of paperdoubly mystified him.

  It was the mere fragment of a telegram, no heading, no date, and itread:

  "Advise Ralph Fairbanks, Stanley Junction. Look out for the pacer."