Ralph on the Engine: or, The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail

CHAPTER XIX
THE WIRE TAPPERS

When the door of the office that Ralph was watching closed again and was locked, the young fireman approached the room. He was very sure that some important move against the railroad was meditated by the two men he had just seen, and he was anxious to overhear their conversation if possible.

To his intense satisfaction Ralph found that a coal box rested under the clouded-glass window of the office looking into the hallway. This window was down from the top some inches. Ralph clambered up on the coal box, got to the side of the window, fixed his eye at a small space where the glass was broken, and prepared to listen to the words of the two men he had in view.

Both sat in chairs now. Bartlett looked brisk and pleased; the ex-telegraph operator was unkempt, rather sullen, and acted like a man under orders on some unpleasant duty.

“Well, Morris,” said the former, “all ready, are you? Tools and wire in that bag?”

“Batteries and all, complete outfit,” responded the other. “What’s the programme?”

“You haven’t mentioned about my employing you to any one?”

“Certainly not.”

“And have arranged to stay away from town for several days?”

“A week, if you like, at ten dollars a day you promised me,” answered Morris.

“Very good. Let me see. There’s a train about 10 o’clock.”

“There is, if the strikers will let it run out,” said Morris.

“Oh, they will. I have arranged all that,” chuckled Bartlett. “They’ll even help it on, knowing I’m aboard.”

“That so?” muttered Morris. “You must have a pull somewhere.”

“I have, or at least money has, and I control the money,” grinned Bartlett. “You are to come with me down the line about twenty miles. You’ll be told then about this special job.”

Bartlett got up and bustled about. He packed a great many papers in a satchel, and finally announced that they had better be starting for the depot.

“Any little by-play you see on the train,” said Bartlett, “help along, mind you.”

“Why, what do you mean?” inquired Morris.

“You’ll see when we get there,” replied Bartlett enigmatically.

When they reached the depot the two men got aboard the one passenger coach of the night accommodation. There was a combination express car ahead. Ralph went to the messenger in charge and arranged to have free access to do as he desired.

When the train started up, he opened the rear door of the car and commanded a clear view into the passenger coach. The men he was watching sat side by side, engaged in conversation. There were only a few passengers aboard.

Ralph kept his eye on the two men. He noticed that Bartlett consulted his watch frequently and glanced as often from the car window. Finally, when the brakeman was out on the rear platform and the conductor at the front of the coach, the young fireman saw Bartlett quickly draw a small screwdriver from his pocket. Hiding its handle in his palm and letting the blade run along one finger, he dropped his arm down the seat rail into the middle of the aisle.

Morris watched towards the rear platform, Bartlett kept his eye on the conductor. His hand worked against the floor of the car. Finally he drew up his arm, put the screwdriver in his pocket and once more resumed his watch on the outside landscape.

There was a sharp signal, and the train gave a jerk. Bartlett arose to his feet. The next instant he fell flat headlong, and lay apparently insensible on the floor of the coach.

The conductor ran outside. The train started up again. Ralph, from the open doorway, heard the engineer shout back something about a false signal, presumably the work of the strikers. The train proceeded on its way.

It was not until then, as he re-entered the coach, that the conductor became aware of the prostrate man on the floor and Morris and other passengers gathering around him in excitement and solicitude. Ralph ventured across the platform near to the door of the passenger coach.

Bartlett, seemingly unconscious, was lifted to a seat. He soon opened his eyes, but feigned intense pain in his side, and acted the injured man to perfection. He began to explain, pointing to the floor. The conductor investigated. Ralph saw him draw a long brass screw into sight.

“A clever game,” murmured the young fireman. “What a rascal the fellow is! He is laying the foundation for a damage suit.”

Morris made himself busy, taking the names of witnesses. When the train stopped, Bartlett had to be almost lifted from the coach. Ralph alighted, too, and kept in the shadow. As soon as the train left, Bartlett was able to walk about unassisted.

The little town they had arrived at was dark and silent, and the two men met no one as they proceeded down its principal street. Then they turned to the south and walked a distance of about a mile. There was a kind of a grove lining the railroad. At its center they reached a lonely hut.

“Open up, there!” shouted Bartlett, pounding on its door with a stick he had picked up.

A light soon showed through the cracks of the board shutters.

“Who is there?” demanded a voice from the inside.

“Bartlett.”

“All right – come in.”

“Gasper Farrington,” murmured Ralph, as he recognized the occupant of the hut.

It was the magnate of Stanley Junction, still disguised, just as he had been the last night Ralph had seen him at the home of Jim Evans. The three men disappeared within the house. Ralph approached and went cautiously about the place. He could not find a single point where he could look into the hut.

The young fireman felt that it was very important that he should learn what was going on within the house. He at length discovered a way of gaining access to at least one part of it. This was at the rear where a high stack of old hay stood. It almost touched the hut, and its top was very near to a sashless aperture in the attic.

Ralph scaled the stack with some difficulty and reached its top. In another moment he was inside the attic. It was low, the rafters were few and far between, and, as he crept over these, they began to sway and creak in an alarming way.

“This won’t do at all,” murmured the youth in some dismay, for it seemed that one more movement would carry down the entire ceiling below. He tried to retreat. There was a great cracking sound, and before he could help himself the young fireman went sprawling into the room below in the midst of a shower of plaster and laths.

“Hello!” shouted Bartlett, jumping up from a chair in consternation.

“I should say so,” exclaimed Morris, dodging about out of the way of falling bits of plaster from the ceiling.

“A spy!” cried Farrington, “a spy! Why, it’s Ralph Fairbanks!”

The young fireman stood surrounded by the three men, trying to clear his half-blinded eyes. He was seized and hustled about, thrown into a chair, and regained his wonted composure to find Gasper Farrington confronting him with an angry face.

“So, it’s you, is it – you, again?” spoke the latter, gazing at Ralph with a glance full of ill will.

“Yes,” responded the youth. “I can’t deny it very well, can I?”

“How do you come to be up in that attic? How long have you been there? What are you up to, anyway?” shouted the excited Farrington.

“Don’t ask me any questions for I shall not answer them,” retorted Ralph nervily. “Here I am. Make the best of it.”

“See here,” said Bartlett, a deep frown on his face. “This looks bad for us. Morris, watch that young fellow a minute or two.”

He and Farrington went into the next room. There was a low-toned consultation. When they came back the lawyer carried a piece of rope in his hand. It was useless for Ralph to resist, and the three men soon had him securely bound. He was carried into a small adjoining room, thrown on a rude mattress, and locked in.

For nearly half-an-hour he could hear the drone of low voices in the adjoining room. Then the door was unlocked, and Farrington came in with a light and made sure that the captive was securely bound.

“You are going to leave here, then?” asked Bartlett.

“Don’t I have to?” demanded Farrington. “This fellow has located us. I’ll take you and Morris to the place I told you about, and move my traps out of here early in the morning.”

“What are you going to do with Fairbanks?” inquired Bartlett.

“I’m thinking about that,” retorted Farrington in a grim way. “It’s the chance of a lifetime to settle with him. You leave that to me.”

The speakers, shortly after this, left the hut with Morris. Ralph found he could not release himself, and patiently awaited developments. His captors had left the light in the next room and the door open, and he could see on a table the satchel the lawyer had brought with him from his office.

The sight of it caused Ralph to make renewed efforts for freedom. He strained at his bonds strenuously. Finally a strand gave way.

It was just as he began to take hope that he might acquire his liberty before his captors returned, that a sudden disaster occurred that made the young fireman fear for his life.

Some more of the ceiling plastering fell. It struck the lamp on the table, upset it, and in an instant the room was ablaze.

CHAPTER XX
IN PERIL

The young fireman gave a great shout of distress and excitement as he realized that he was in a decidedly perilous predicament. The oil of the lamp had ignited and the hut seemed doomed.

Ralph tugged at his bonds in a frenzy. Another strand of the rope gave way, then another, and still another. He trembled with mingled surprise and hope. Could he get free in time? It seemed not, for the flames were spreading fast and furiously.

Suddenly there was a shout outside of the hut. It was repeated, and then there came a great crash at the door. Ralph wondered at this, for he could think only of Farrington and his accomplices returning to the rescue. The loud pounding on the door, however, indicated that the persons engaged in it had no key. There was more than one person; Ralph ascertained this from the sound of mingled voices.

Suddenly the door gave way. It was burst bodily from its hinges and went crashing against the blazing table, upsetting it. At just that moment Ralph got one arm free. He was about to shout for assistance when he recognized the intruders.

They were Ike Slump and Mort Bemis. Both dashed into the blazing room. One found a pail of water and threw it in among the flames. This subdued the blaze partially.

“Be quick!” cried Slump to his companion. “Grab all you can. You have been watching the place, and say you know where old Farrington is likely to hide his valuables.”

“Right here,” replied Bemis, tearing open the door of a cupboard. “Here’s a satchel.”

“And here’s another one,” said Ike Slump, picking up the one that Bartlett had brought to the place. “Look sharp, now. They may come back at any moment.”

The two marauders ransacked the room. Ralph refrained from calling out to them. He could now reach his pocket knife, and just as Slump and Bemis, pretty well singed by the flames, ran out of the hut, he hurried to a rear door and darted outside as well.

The young fireman peered around the corner of the hut. He saw Slump and Bemis making for the nearest timber. Ralph put after them, and as he gained the cover of the woods, looking back, he made out three figures dashing towards the blazing hut.

“Farrington and the others,” decided Ralph. “This is an exciting business. Now to keep track of Slump and Bemis. I can hardly figure out, though, how they came to rob the hut, for Farrington was once their friend.”

The precious pair of thieves scurried along through the woods, laughing and talking gleefully over the plunder they had secured. They must have gone over three miles before they halted. It was at a spot in among high bushes. Here they had evidently been camping previously, for there was a lot of hay on the ground, the signs of a recent campfire, and a sort of roof of bark overhead for shelter from rain and dew. They sat down on the ground and Slump proceeded to light a lantern.

“Your watching has amounted to something at last, Mort,” said Slump. “Farrington went back on us in a measly way. Why, after all we did for him he took up with Jim Evans and others, and even refused me a few dollars when we were in hiding and trouble after that silk robbery. Here’s our revenge. He’s been up to some deep game for a week. He’ll never know who stole this plunder.”

“Find how much of it there is,” suggested Bemis.

Each took up a satchel to investigate the contents. Ralph was intensely interested. He peered from a safe covert near at hand.

“Well, well, well!” exclaimed Slump as he opened the satchel taken from the cupboard of the old hut. “Why, there’s a fortune here, if we can only handle it. Bonds of the Great Northern, stock in the Great Northern. See? some money – notes, mortgages, deeds! This is a big find.”

“Same here, except the money,” reported Bemis, investigating the documents in the satchel brought from Stanley Junction by Bartlett. “Mostly railroad stock in the Great Northern. Private letters, lists of names of the strikers. Memoranda about some wire-tapping scheme. Say, these papers are enough to send the old skeesicks to the penitentiary. He’ll pay a fortune to get them back.”

Slump pocketed the ready cash in the satchel. Then he was silently thoughtful for a few moments.

“See here, I have my scheme,” he said finally. “We’ll carry these satchels down to the old barge at the creek, and hide them there. Then we’ll block out some plan to work Farrington for their return.”

“All right,” said Bemis. “Come ahead.”

They took up the satchels and started on again, and Ralph followed them as before. They came to a creek, and, after lining its shore for nearly a mile, to a large roughly-made scow. Both boarded the craft, disappeared in its hold, reappeared, and came to the shore again.

“We’ll just enjoy the ready cash for the time being,” said Slump, “and later find out a safe way to deal with Farrington.”

When they had gone, Ralph went aboard the scow. A scuttle led down into its hold. Its cover was closed with a strong spring bolt. Ralph drew this back and sat over the edge of the scuttle.

He peered down, prepared to push the cover clear back, when he slipped and went below head-long. The cover fell tightly shut, and he was a prisoner.

Ralph did not mind this much at the time. He believed he could readily force up the cover in some way when he wanted to leave the scow. He lit some matches and proceeded to search for the two satchels. He found them in a remote corner of the hold.

It was when he prepared to leave the hold that the young fireman discovered himself in a decided quandary. He could barely reach the scuttle cover, and there was not an object in the hold that he could use to force it open. Finally Ralph decided that he could not hope for escape in that direction.

There was a little window at one end of the scow, but it was too small to escape by. Ralph was compelled to accept the situation, at least until daylight. He tried to sleep, and at dawn looked out from the window.

“I will simply have to wait here until some one passes by,” he told himself. “In the meantime, though, Slump and Bemis may return. Can I reach the rope holding the scow to the shore?”

This was secured around a tree stump. Ralph reached with his pocket knife through the window, and began cutting at the scow end of the rope, which ran just above it.

In a few minutes the strands gave way and the scow floated down the creek.

CHAPTER XXI
A FRIEND IN NEED

There was a sluggish current to the creek and as soon as the scow got into midstream, it proceeded steadily on its voyage.

“This is better than staying at the old mooring place,” reasoned Ralph. “Of course, Slump and Bemis will return there and search for the scow. Before they do, I hope I will have drifted past some house or settlement where I can call out for assistance.”

Ralph, however, was not destined to meet with ready relief. The scow floated along banks wild and timbered, and, during a vigilant watch at the little window of over two hours, he saw no human being or habitation.

Finally the scow slowed up, its course became irregular, it bumped into some obstacle, turned around, and Ralph discovered the cause of the stoppage. A mass of logs and other debris had formed clear across the creek at one point. This the scow lined, edging slowly along as if drawn by some counter-current.

In a few minutes the craft had worked its way into a cut-off from the creek. It floated slowly in among a swampy wilderness of reeds and stunted trees, came to halt at a shallow, and there remained stationary.

“Why, this is worse than being in the creek,” ruminated Ralph, with some concern. “There was a chance of hailing some one there sooner or later, but in this isolated spot I stand the risk of starving to death.”

The young fireman was both hungry and thirsty. He made another desperate attempt to force the scuttle, but found it an utter impossibility. Then he took out his pocket knife. There was one last chance of escape in sight. If he could cut the wood away around the bolt of the scuttle cover, he might force it open.

Ralph could not work to any advantage, for the top of the hold was fully a foot above his head. However, patiently and hopefully he began his task. Bit by bit, the splinters and shavings of wood dropped about him.

“Too bad, that ends it,” he exclaimed suddenly, as there was a sharp snap and the knife blade broke in two.

The situation was now a very serious one. Ralph tried to view things calmly, but he was considerably worried. He was somewhat encouraged, however, a little later, as he noticed that along the dry land lining the swampy cut-off there were signs of a rough wagon road.

“All I can do now is to watch and wait,” he declared. “I guess I will take a look over the contents of those satchels.”

Once started at the task, Ralph became greatly interested. He was amazed at what the documents before him revealed of the plans and villainies of old Gasper Farrington. There was evidence enough, indeed, as Slump had said, to send the village magnate to the penitentiary.

“This information will be of great value to the railroad people,” said Ralph. “It would enable them to at once break the strike.”

“Whoa!”

Ralph gave utterance to a cry of delight and surprise. He ran to the little window of the scow. Not fifty feet away was a horse and wagon. Its driver had shouted out the word to halt. Now he dismounted and was arranging a part of the harness where it had come loose.

“Hello, there! Joe! Joe! hurry this way!” fairly shouted Ralph.

“Hi, who’s that, where are you?” demanded the person hailed.

“In the scow. Ralph! Locked in! Get me out!”

“I declare! It can’t be Ralph. Well! well!”

Nimbly as his crutches would allow him, Limpy Joe came towards the scow. He halted as he neared the window where he could make out the anxious face of his friend.

“What are you ever doing there? How did you get in there? Why, this is wonderful, my finding you in this way,” cried the cripple.

“I’ll tell you all that when I get out,” promised Ralph. “All you have to do is to spring back the bolt catch on the cover to the hold scuttle.”

“I’ll soon have you out then,” said Joe, and with alacrity he waded into the water, got aboard the old craft, and in another minute Ralph had lifted himself free of his prison place.

“Whew! what a relief,” aspirated the young fireman joyfully. “Joe, it is easy explaining how I came to be here – the natural sequence of events – but for you to be on hand to save me is marvelous.”

“I don’t see why,” said Joe. “I have been coming here for the last three days.”

“What for?” inquired Ralph.

“Business, strictly.”

“Mother told me you had taken the horse and wagon and had gone off on a peddling trip,” said Ralph.

“Yes, I sold out a lot of cheap shoes to farmers which I got at a bargain at an auction,” explained Joe. “Then I struck a fine new scheme. It brought me here. I’ll explain to you later. Your story is the one that interests me. Tell me how you came to be in that scow, Ralph.”

The young fireman brought up the two satchels from the hold of the old craft, and briefly related to Joe the incidents of his experience with Farrington, Slump and the others.

“I say, you have done a big thing in getting those satchels,” said Joe, “and you want to place them in safe hands at once. Come ashore, and I’ll drive you to the nearest railroad town. You don’t want to risk meeting any of your enemies until you have those papers out of their reach.”

When they came up to the wagon, Ralph gazed at its piled-up contents in surprise. The wagon bottom was filled with walnuts and butternuts. There must have been over twelve bushels of them. On top of them was spread a lot of damp rushes and all kinds of wild flowers, mosses and grasses. Two large mud turtles lay under the wagon seat.

“Why, what does all that layout mean?” exclaimed Ralph, in amazement.

“That,” said little Joe, with sparkling eyes, “is an advertising scheme. Some time ago I discovered the finest nut grove in the timber yonder you ever saw. I suppose I could in time have gathered up a hundred wagon loads of them. I intend to make a heap of money out of them. A couple of days ago, though, I thought out a great idea. You know Woods, the dry goods man at the Junction?”

“Yes,” nodded Ralph.

“He is a wide-awake, enterprising fellow, and I told him of my scheme. It caught his fancy at once. The plan was this: every week, I am to trim up his show window with what we call ‘a nature feature.’ We keep pace with vegetation. This week we show a swamp outfit; next week pumpkins and the like; the following week autumn leaves. We work in live objects like turtles to give motion to the scene. Do you catch on?”

“It is an excellent idea and will attract lots of attention,” declared Ralph.

“You bet it will,” assented his comrade with enthusiasm. “Anyhow, my pay is fine and I expect to work other towns in the same way. I will show you the most artistic display window you ever saw when I get this load of truck to town.”

In about two hours they reached a railroad station, and somewhat later Ralph caught a train for the city. He went at once to the office of the president of the Great Northern. There was a long interview. As Ralph left the railroad magnate his face was pleased and his heart light and hopeful.

“Fairbanks,” said Mr. Grant, “I cannot express my satisfaction at your discoveries. It is as we supposed – some individual has been encouraging the strikers. There are ample proofs among these papers of the fact that Gasper Farrington has hired the strikers to commit all kinds of misdeeds to scare stockholders of the road. He has thus been enabled to buy up their stock at a reduced figure, to make an enormous profit when the strike is over. He had a scheme to tap our wires and cause further complications and trouble. Within a week the backbone of the strike will be broken, and we shall not forget your agency in assisting us to win out.”

Ralph went back to Stanley Junction that same day. He related all his varied adventures to his mother that evening.

“One thing I discovered from those documents in the satchels,” said Ralph. “Farrington has transferred all his property to Bartlett so we could not collect the money he owes us.”

“Then we shall lose our twenty thousand dollars after all,” said Mrs. Fairbanks anxiously.

“Wait and see,” replied Ralph, with a mysterious smile. “I am not yet through with Gasper Farrington.”