CHAPTER III--A CLOSE GRAZE
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Ralph's strained hearing caught these sounds vaguely. All his attentionwas centered on the locomotive apparently speeding to sure disaster.
The next instant, however, he became aware that in some mysterious waythese noises signalized his rescue from a terrible situation.
The lever rods his hands clasped vibrated harshly. As if by magic thatglue-like suction tension on his fingers was withdrawn.
His hands still burned and tingled, but a great gasp of relief left hislips. His eyes fixed on the rushing engine, his hands now pulled thelevers in order.
Not six inches from taking the in main rails, not eight seconds fromreducing the accommodation to a heap of kindling wood, the "chaser" shotswitch eleven, and glided smoothly to the terminus. Its serene crewnever dreamed how they had grazed death by a hair's breadth.
Ralph half fell between the levers. He felt that his face must be thecolor of chalk. His strength was entirely spent. He still grasped thelevers, hanging there for a moment like a person about to faint.
Fortunately there was no call for switch-tower service during theensuing minute or two. Ralph tried to rally his dazed senses, tocomprehend what was going on below.
For again a swishing, cracking, clattering sound rang out. This time itwas followed by a curdling cry of pain.
"You'll blind me--you're tearing my hair out by the roots!" screamed avoice which Ralph instantly recognized.
It belonged to Mort Bemis. Ralph began to have a coherent suspicion asto the cause of his recent helplessness.
"I'll tear twenty-six dollars out of you, or I'll have your hide!"proclaimed strident feminine tones.
"I hain't got no money."
"You'll get it for me. What, strike me with that piece of wire! Youwretch, I'll----"
There was a jangling crash, as of some heavy body thrown back againstthe lever cables in the lower story of the switch tower.
Then its door crashed open, and glancing through the windows Ralph sawMort Bemis dash into view.
He sped across tracks as if for his life. He was hatless, his face wasstreaked with red welts. From one hand trailed a piece of insulatedelectric light wire.
Giving a frightened backward glance as he reached a line of freights,the ex-towerman leaped the space between two cars and disappeared fromview.
From the lower story of the switch tower there now issued exclamationsof rage and disgust.
Ralph started to look down the ladder trap. Just then the dial calledfor a switch, and duty temporarily curbed his interest and curiosity. Ashe set clear tracks again, a head obtruded through the trapdoor.
It was that of the resolute woman Ralph had noticed a little time pastso audaciously crossing the rails and defying instructions. Her facewas red and heated, her eyes flashing. Her hair was in disorder, andthe poke bonnet was all awry.
"Be careful--don't fall, madam," said Ralph quickly, with inbornchivalry and politeness, springing to the trap.
He put out a hand to help her. She disdained his assistance with animpatient sniff, and cleared the ladder like an expert.
"Don't trouble yourself about me, young man," she observed crisply. "I'mable to take care of myself."
"I see you are, madam."
"I've run an ore dummy in my time, when my husband was head yardman atan iron works, and I know how to climb. See here," she demandedimperatively, fixing a keen look on the young railroader, "are you bosshere?"
"Why, you might say so," answered Ralph. "That is, I am in chargehere."
The woman put down her umbrella to adjust her bonnet. Ralph observedthat the umbrella was in tatters and the ribs all broken and twisted. Hecomprehended that it was with this weapon that she had just assaultedMort Bemis.
"If you're the boss," pursued the woman, "I'm Mrs. Davis--Mort Bemis'landlady, and I want to know what I've got to do to get twenty-sixdollars thet he owes me for board and lodging for the last six weeks."
"I see," nodded Ralph--"slow pay, that fellow."
"No pay at all!" flashed out the woman wrathfully. "He came to me monthbefore last with a great story of promotion, big salary, and all hisback funds tied up in a savings bank at Springfield. Last pay day heclaimed someone robbed him. This pay day he dropped from the garretwindow, leaving an old empty trunk. I got on his trail to-day, and Iwant to garnishee his wages. How do I go about it?"
"I don't know the process," said Ralph, "never having had any experiencein that class of business, but I should say garnisheeing in this casewould simply be sending good money after bad."
"How?" demanded Mrs. Davis sharply.
"Bemis has very likely drawn every cent the company owes him."
"But his pay is running on."
"Not now, madam. He was discharged two days ago."
"W-what!" voiced Mrs. Davis, in dismay. "And won't he be taken back?"
"From what I hear--hardly," said Ralph.
The woman's strong, weather-beaten features relaxed. All herimpetuosity seemed to die out with her hope. Ralph felt sorry for her.She was brusque and harsh of manner, masculine in her ways, but thewomanly helplessness now exhibited was pathetic.
She tottered back to the armchair, every vestige of willfulness andforce gone. Apparently this odd creature never did things by halves.She sunk down in the chair, and began to cry as if her heart wouldbreak. Ralph was called back to the levers and had no time to consoleher. He watched her pityingly, however. Between her sobbings andincoherent lamentations he pretty clearly made out the history of herpresent woes.
Mort Bemis had, it seemed, shown himself a "dead beat of the firstwater." Mrs. Davis had recently come to Stanley Junction, and hadrented an old house near a factory owned by Gasper Farrington.
Bemis had applied for board and lodging. With what he promised to pay,and with what she could make off an orchard, vegetable patch, and somepoultry, this would give Mrs. Davis a fair living.
"And he never paid me a cent," she sobbed out. "Last Saturday my lastcent went for flour. Yesterday I used up the last bread in the house. Ihaven't eaten a morsel this blessed day. The man who owns the housethreatens to turn me out if I don't pay the six dollars rent by sixo'clock to-night, and all for that rascally, thieving Bemis! Afull-grown man, and robbing and cheating a poor lone widow like me!"
Ralph glanced up and down the rails. Then he glided over to the clothescloset at the end of the tower room and secured his dinner pail.
"And what was the scoundrel up to below, when I discovered him just now,I'd like to know?" went on Mrs. Davis. "Some dirty mischief, I'll bebound. He had a wire fixed around a bigger one, and was holding thescraped copper ends against the lever cables till they sparked outlittle flashes of fire. Say, can't he be arrested for swindling me? Thereprobate deserves to suffer."
Ralph gave a little start of comprehension just there. The woman's lastrecital had cleared up the mystery of his recent sudden helplessness.
There was no doubt whatever in his mind but that the revengeful MortBemis had started in to "fix" him, as he had threatened earlier in theday. His knowledge of the details and environment of the switch towerhad enabled him to work out a well-devised scheme.
Ralph knew that Bemis was determined to undermine and discredit him atany cost.
He theorized that in some way Bemis had connected the current from thewires that looped up from the road boxes into the tower. He had thepracticed eye to know what levers Ralph would use. Bemis had thrown onthe current, magnetizing the new leverman at just the critical moment.
But for the providential intervention of Mrs. Davis a destructivecollision would have occurred, Ralph would have been disgraced, andthere would have been a vacancy at the switch tower.
"The villain!" breathed Ralph, all afire with indignation, and then hisglance softened as he turned to the woman seated in the armchair. Hergrief had spent itself, but she sat with her chin sunk in one hand,moping de
jectedly.
There was a short bench near one of the windows. Ralph pulled this upin front of the armchair. He opened his lunch pail and spread out anapkin on the bench. Then on this he placed two home-made sandwiches, apiece of apple pie, and a square of the raisin cake that had made hismother famous as a first-class cook.
All this Ralph did so quickly that Mrs. Davis, absorbed in her gloomythoughts, did not notice him. He touched her arm gently.
"I want you to sample my mother's cooking, Mrs. Davis," he said, with apleasant smile. "You will feel better if you eat a little, and I wantto tell you something."
"Well, well! did you ever?" exclaimed Mrs. Davis, noting now the suddentransformation of the bench into a lunch table. "Why, boy," shecontinued, with a keen stare at Ralph, "I can't take your victuals awayfrom you."
"But you must eat," insisted Ralph. "I had a hearty dinner, and have awarm supper waiting for me soon after dark. I brought the dinner pailalong just as a matter of form in a way, see."
"Yes, I do see," answered his visitor, with a gulp, and new tears in hereyes--"I see you are a good boy, and a blessing to a good mother, I'llwarrant."
"You are right about the good mother, Mrs. Davis," said Ralph, "and Iwant you to go and see her, to judge for yourself."
Mrs. Davis munched a sandwich. She looked flustered at Ralph'ssuggestion.
"I'm hardly in a position to make calls--I'm dreadfully poor and humblejust now," she said in a broken tone.
"Well," repeated Ralph decisively, "you must call on my mother thisafternoon. You see, Mrs. Davis, that rent of yours has got to be paidby six o'clock, hasn't it?"
"The landlord said so."
"I have only a dollar or so in my pocket here," continued Ralph, "but mymother has some of my savings up at the house. I want to let you haveten dollars. I will write a note to my mother, and she will let youhave it."
Mrs. Davis let the sandwich she was eating fall nervelessly to thenapkin.
"What--what are you saying!" she spoke, staring in perplexity at Ralph.
"Why, you must pay your rent, you know," said Ralph, "and you need alittle surplus till you get on your feet again. There may be some wayof shaming or forcing Mort Bemis into paying that twenty-six dollars. Ifthere is, I will discover it for you."
"But--but you don't know me. I'm a stranger to you. I couldn't takemoney from a boy like you, working hard as you must, probably for littleenough wages," vociferated Mrs. Davis, strangely stirred up by thegenerous proffer. "I might take a loan from somebody able to spare themoney, for I can write to a sister at a distance and get a trifle, andpay it back again, but not from you. No--no, thank you just thesame--just the same," and the woman broke down completely, crying again.
Ralph sprang to the levers at a new switch call. Then he resumed hisargument.
"Mrs. Davis, you shall take the ten dollars, and you shall have twentyif you need it, and that is an end to it. First: because you are indistress and I have it to spare. Next: because I owe you a debt moneycannot pay."
"Nonsense, boy," spoke Mrs. Davis dubiously.
"It's true. You don't happen to know it, but you have saved my positionand my character this afternoon. You have probably saved the railroadcompany great loss of property, if not of life itself. I should be agrateful boy to you, Mrs. Davis. Let me tell you why."
Ralph did tell her. He recited the story of the last hour at thelevers. Before she could make a comment at its termination, he hadwritten and thrust into her hand a note addressed to his mother.
"I'll take the ten dollars," said Mrs. Davis, in a subdued tone, afterhe had directed her to his home, "but only as a loan. You shall have itback quick as I can get word from my sister."
"As you like about that," answered Ralph. "I hope you will make afriend of my mother," he added. "She has had her troubles, and youwould be the happier for asking her counsel."
"Yes, I've had a heap of troubles, boy," sighed Mrs. Davis. "Oh, dear!I may be a little good in the world, after all. And," with a wistfullook at Ralph, "it's hopeful to think all boys aren't like bad MortBemis. And here I'm borrowing money from you, and don't even know yourname."
She groped in a pocket and drew forth a worn memorandum book and apencil. Then, opening the book at a blank page, she looked upinquiringly at Ralph.
"Fairbanks," dictated Ralph.
Mrs. Davis had placed the pencil point on the blank page, ready towrite. As Ralph spoke her hand seemed swayed by a great shock.
The pencil and book were nervelessly dropped to the floor. She turned acolorless face towards Ralph, and, shrinking back in the creakingarmchair, stared at him so strangely and fixedly that he was unable tounderstand her sudden emotion.