RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER

THE FIRE WAS SWEEPING CLOSER AND CLOSER.

RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER

OR

THE WRECK AT SHADOW VALLEY

BY

ALLEN CHAPMAN

AUTHOR OF “RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE,” “RALPH ON THE

ARMY TRAIN,” “THE RADIO BOYS’ FIRST WIRELESS,”

“THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING A VOICE,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

BOOKS FOR BOYS

BY ALLEN CHAPMAN

12mo. Cloth, Illustrated.

THE RAILROAD SERIES

RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE

Or Bound to Become a Railroad Man

RALPH IN THE SWITCH TOWER

Or Clearing the Track

RALPH ON THE ENGINE

Or The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail

RALPH ON THE OVERLAND EXPRESS

Or The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer

RALPH, THE TRAIN DISPATCHER

Or The Mystery of the Pay Car

RALPH ON THE ARMY TRAIN

Or The Young Railroader’s Most Daring Exploit

RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER

Or The Wreck at Shadow Valley

THE RADIO BOYS SERIES

THE RADIO BOYS’ FIRST WIRELESS

Or Winning the Ferberton Prize

THE RADIO BOYS AT OCEAN POINT

Or The Message that Saved the Ship

THE RADIO BOYS AT THE SENDING STATION

Or Making Good in the Wireless Room

THE RADIO BOYS AT MOUNTAIN PASS

Or The Midnight Call for Assistance

THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING A VOICE

Or Solving a Wireless Mystery

THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS

Or The Great Fire on Spruce Mountain

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York

COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY GROSSET & DUNLAP

Ralph on the Midnight Flyer

CONTENTS

RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER
CHAPTER I
THE TROUBLE-MAKER

“What do you think, Ralph? Would any of our Great Northern employees be foolish enough to join this wildcat strike?”

“Well, what do you think yourself?” asked Ralph Fairbanks, with some impatience in his tone. “You know these roughnecks as well as I do.”

The general manager, in whose office at Rockton they were sitting, threw up both hands and fairly snorted his disgust.

“I’ve been a long time at the railroad game,” he declared; “but I never yet understood the psychology of a maintenance of way man. No, sir. In some things they are as loyal to the road as I am myself. And then they suddenly go off at a tangent because of something that, for the life of me, I cannot see is important.”

“There lies the difficulty—the germ of the whole trouble,” Ralph Fairbanks said thoughtfully.

He was a young fellow of attractive personality—good looking, too. The girls had begun to notice the young railroader, and had he not been so thoroughly devoted to his calling—and to the finest mother a fellow ever had—Ralph might have been somewhat spoiled by the admiration accorded him in certain quarters.

Just now, however, having been called in from the train dispatchers’ department where he worked, the young fellow’s attention was deeply engaged in the subject the general manager had brought up. Ralph was an extraordinary employee of the Great Northern. His superiors trusted him thoroughly. And having worked his way up from the roundhouse, switch tower, as fireman and engineer, to the train dispatcher’s grade, he was often called upon by the railroad officials for special duties.

The general manager stared at the young fellow after his last remark for fully a minute before asking:

“What do you mean by that? What is the germ of the whole trouble?”

“The fact that the officials cannot see things just as the men see them.”

“Oh!”

“No getting away from the fact that the laborer seldom looks at a thing as his superior looks at it,” Ralph pursued earnestly. “A rule promulgated by some officer of the road seems to him the simplest way of getting at a needed result. But after it is spread on the board at the roundhouse, for instance, it creates a riot.”

“So it does. And I am hanged if I have been able to understand in some cases why the men go off half-cocked over some simple thing.”

“Not simple at all to them. It is often a rule that lops off some cherished privilege. It may be something that looks as though it were aimed at the laborer’s independence.”

“Bah!” ejaculated the general manager with more than a little disdain in his tone.

“You see!” laughed Ralph. “You can’t see it in the same way that I can, for instance. You make an order, say, changing the style of the caps the men wear around the roundhouse and switch towers, and see what a row you’ll have on your hands. Some ‘lawyer’ among ’em will see a deliberate attempt for somebody to graft—or worse. Those caps they get for a quarter and can buy in the little stores that crop up around every railroad yard. The hogheads and firemen wear them. Everybody wears them. You order that the cap hereafter worn shall be quite different from the present cap, and you’ll start something that you’ll never be able to stop save by buckling down to the boys.”

“But why?” demanded the official. “Tell me! What is the reason? Another cap might not cost them a penny more——”

“Or might not cost them as much. That would make no difference. You strike at his independence in changing the style of the cap. And his independence is the most cherished possession of the railroader. You should know that.”

“I know that they think they are independent,” growled the general manager. “But like the rest of us, they are just about as independent as the hog on the cake of ice.”

The young train dispatcher laughed again. He could really appreciate the mental attitude of both the disgruntled railroad workers, at this time stirred up all over the country from ocean to ocean, and the higher officials of the road, who realized fully that unless all branches of the railroad pulled together during the next few months there would surely come financial wreckage to many systems.

The Great Northern was really in better circumstances than many trunk lines at the time. But on the division the headquarters of which were here in Rockton, friction had developed. The shopmen talked strike; the yardmen were disgruntled; the section hands of the division talked more than they worked. Altogether the situation was so serious that the general manager himself found it necessary to look the field over.

And it was not strange that he should have called Ralph Fairbanks into conference. Young as the latter was, he was a link between the officials and the workmen at large.

“Look here, Ralph,” said the general manager suddenly, swinging about in his chair with one leg over its arm and pointing his lighted cigar at the young fellow, “I’m going to ask you a pointed question. What do you think of Bart Hopkins?”

“Mr. Hopkins—the division super?” returned Ralph briskly and looking straight into the general manager’s face. “I think that Mr. Hopkins has a lovely daughter. As the boys say, she’s a peach!”

“No,” replied the general manager gloomily, “she’s a Cherry—a different kind of fruit. But I am not asking your opinion of Cherry Hopkins. How about Bart?”

“I guess I haven’t been thinking much about him,” confessed Ralph slowly. “He has been here in charge for three months, and to tell the truth I have not spoken to him half-a-dozen times. He has nothing to do, of course, with the dispatchers’ department. Mr. Hopkins is a pleasant-spoken man.”

“You know blamed well that I am not asking, either, about Bart Hopkins’ social qualities,” said the exasperated general manager. “What do you think of him as a railroad man? What is he doing here?”

A flash of feeling came into Ralph Fairbanks’ face and he looked steadily at his old friend and superior.

“What did you expect him to do here?”

“Confound it all! I don’t want to be catechised. I want you to answer me. I want to know what you think of the man’s work?”

“You want it straight, then, do you?” asked Ralph sharply.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then I think he will end in setting everybody by the ears and bringing on a strike that may spread to every division of the Great Northern. You have forced this answer from me. Remember, you must not quote me.”

“I won’t snitch,” said the general manager, with a wry grin. “I understand. Then you take the men’s view of Bart? You believe he is a trouble-maker?”

“As sure as you are two feet high!” exclaimed Ralph, with conviction.

“Huh! He has already brought about changes that have saved the division a mint of money.”

“The other changes he has made will cost the road a good deal more—if there is a strike.”

“Actually, do you believe there will be a strike, Ralph?”

“If Andy McCarrey has his way, there will be. And Mr. Hopkins is playing right into McCarrey’s hands.”

“I can’t believe that Bart would deliberately do anything to bring on trouble.”

“No. But he’s been bitten by the efficiency bug. The swelling is a terrible one,” said Ralph, smiling again. “Mr. Hopkins can’t seem to see things at all from the men’s standpoint. As I said before, an inability to see the effect of an order on the men’s minds is the germ of most friction between the laborers and the railroad heads. McCarrey is a bad man. He wants to lead a strike. Naturally a strike will put a lot of money in McCarrey’s hands. These strike leaders do as they please with strike funds—there is never any check on them.

“Besides, as I believe, he has a personal enmity for Mr. Hopkins. Somewhere in the East, where Hopkins came from, McCarrey got a grudge against him.”

“Yes, I understand Barton Hopkins was in the middle of some trouble on the Eastern Shore Railroad. He is a stormy petrel. But he is making good here. He has saved us money,” reiterated the general manager.

“Well, if money is more to the Great Northern than a loyal band of employees,” said Ralph with some bitterness, as he got up from his chair, “then you have got just what you want in Mr. Hopkins. I’m telling you that I see trouble ahead. And it is coming soon.”

Ralph Fairbanks felt deeply regarding the situation which had arisen in Rockton. When he walked down past the railroad shops a little later on his way home and looked in at the open windows, he could not fail to notice that the shopmen were talking together in groups instead of being busy at their various jobs.

“Looks bad,” muttered Ralph. “I hated to knock the new super. Especially when he has got such a pretty daughter,” and he smiled reminiscently.

Suddenly he started and then quickened his steps. Ahead of him he saw a trimly dressed figure crossing the railroad at Hammerby Street. He could not mistake the girl. Not when she had been in his mind the previous instant.

Miss Cherry Hopkins was a pronounced blonde. It was at the time when bobbed hair was popular, and bobbed hair added to Cherry’s chic appearance. She was slim, and of good figure. She wore a silk sweater, a sport skirt, and a hat that was in keeping.

The girl crossed the tracks and reached the sidewalk on the other side. There were no dwellings near; only warehouses. And save for a group of roughly dressed men loitering behind the flagman’s shanty, there were few people near the crossing.

Suddenly Ralph saw something that caused him to dart forward, shouting angrily:

“Look out, Miss Cherry! Look out!”

The girl flashed a look behind her. Fortunately she dodged involuntarily at Ralph Fairbanks’ cry, for the next instant a missile flew over her shoulder and crashed against the end of the warehouse. Had it struck the girl it would have hurt her seriously.

CHAPTER II
DISCIPLINE

An over-ripe cabbage may be a dangerous missile. This one exploded almost like a bomb against the warehouse, spattering Cherry Hopkins all over. She screamed and ran back toward Ralph Fairbanks. A harsh voice shouted:

“Poor shot! Yer oughter smashed that Hopkins gal, Whitey.”

Ralph saw that the group of fellows behind the flagman’s shack had scattered. One long-legged fellow was ahead and evidently in some fear of apprehension.

“You wait right here, Miss Cherry!” the young dispatcher cried. “I’m going to try to get that fellow.”

He dashed along the tracks and through an alley of which he knew. He hoped to head off the fellow called “Whitey,” who he was quite sure had thrown the cabbage.

But when he came out upon North Main Street he could not see any sign of the hoodlum. He looked into several small stores and tenement house halls, but the fellow had made good his escape.

When he returned by the way of Hammerby Street he saw Cherry Hopkins trying to wipe the decayed vegetable matter off her sweater and skirt. Her pretty hat was likewise stained. When Ralph came near enough he saw that the girl had been crying.

No man or boy likes to see a girl weep.

Ralph hesitated, not knowing what to say to Cherry Hopkins. He had never been more than casually acquainted with the supervisor’s daughter; but he did admire her.

Ralph could not have failed to attract the young girl’s attention during the three months she had spent in Rockton. In the first place, almost everybody in the small but thriving city knew the young train dispatcher.

In the first story about Ralph, “Ralph of the Roundhouse,” the young fellow’s beginnings on the Great Northern were fully related. His father had been one of the builders of the Great Northern, but through unfortunate speculations he had died poor and left Ralph and his mother to struggle along as best they could. In addition, Mr. Fairbanks’ partner, Gaspar Farrington, had been dishonest, and had Ralph and his widowed mother at his mercy.

How Ralph checkmated Farrington as well as the exciting incidents of his career in the roundhouse is all narrated in that first volume of the series.

In ensuing volumes the young fellow’s career as towerman, fireman, engineer, and in the different grades of dispatcher, is told in full. The sixth volume, “Ralph on the Army Train,” is the story of the youth’s work in that great part which the railroaders took in the war. By Ralph’s individual effort, a heavily loaded train of our boys bound for the embarking port was taken through to safety in spite of a plot to wreck the train.

He was now, some months later, back on his old job as chief dispatcher of this division of the Great Northern. He might have had a good position on the main line; but, in taking it, he would have had to sacrifice some independence and, more than all, must have given up the little home he and his mother owned in Rockton and removed the widow from surroundings that she loved.

“My chance to get a good thing will come again,” Ralph had told Mrs. Fairbanks. “And really, I am my own boss here. Even Barton Hopkins can’t tell me where to get off.”

For divisional supervisor Hopkins had soon become very much disliked. He was a good railroader—no doubt of that. But he should have been a drill-master in a military school rather than the head of a division of a railroad at a time when almost every railroad employee felt that he had been whipsawed between the Government and his employing railroad.

Hopkins lacked tact; he saw nothing but the job and what he could make of it. His god was discipline! He was upright and honest, but, as the saying goes, he bent over backwards when he stood erect. And Ralph Fairbanks was pretty thoroughly convinced that grave trouble was brewing because of Mr. Hopkins’ methods.

Just at this moment, however, it was Cherry Hopkins in whose affairs the young dispatcher was deeply interested. As she tried to wipe the stains from her skirt and “sniffled” back her tears, Ralph approached slowly.

“Now, Miss Cherry,” he begged, “don’t cry about it. If I could have caught that fellow I would have handed him over to one of the road’s policemen. It didn’t really hurt you——”

“I’m just as mad, Ralph Fairbanks, as I can be!” interrupted the girl, with heat. “And it is always the way wherever we go. The railroad men seem to hate us all.”

“Indeed?” rejoined Ralph thoughtfully. “Have you been troubled in Rockton before this?”

“Of course I have. And mother, too. We have been followed on the street, and booed and hissed. Father doesn’t mind——”

“I am quite sure he has not reported it to the chief detective of the road, Mr. Bob Adair.”

“Father would not report such a thing. He considers it beneath notice.”

“I’ll say that cabbage was not beneath notice!” cried Ralph. “If it had hit you—well! Come along, Miss Cherry. Let me see you home.”

“Oh, I don’t want to trouble you, Mr. Fairbanks.”

“You know I live in your direction,” said Ralph, pleasantly. “We’ll walk along together. And you tell me, Miss Cherry, who these fellows are who have insulted your mother and you.”

“Oh, dear me, how do I know who they are?” cried the girl, despairingly. “They are low fellows, of course. And many of them are just boys—loafers. They do not even work for the Great Northern.”

“But their fathers and brothers do, I suppose?” ruminated Ralph.

“I suppose so. You see, we have to cross the railroad to do our shopping. When we come into this district, if there is a group of idlers hanging around they are almost sure to call after us. It is not pleasant.”

“It should be reported. But, of course, it is your father’s business,” said Ralph thoughtfully. “I might speak to Mr. Adair. He is a friend of mine. But unless Mr. Hopkins sanctioned any move against the rowdies, I am afraid——”

“I wish you would come in and talk to father about it,” Cherry cried eagerly. “He might listen to you.”

“Is he at home at this hour?” asked the young dispatcher doubtfully. “I don’t know about saying anything to him regarding a private matter.”

“I want him to know how you drove those fellows away,” she said. “Do come in. You know my father, don’t you?”

“Slightly. We do not come in contact much,” Ralph said slowly.

“You will like him, Mr. Fairbanks,” said the girl earnestly. “He is really a wonderful man. Wherever he has held a position the company has been glad of his services. He is marvelously efficient. And he is forever planning improvements and scheming out ways of saving money for the road. Oh, yes, they all admire him.”

“The men, too?” Ralph asked shrewdly.

“Oh! The laborers? I don’t know about that.”

“Quite an important point, I assure you,” said Ralph grimly. “No matter how much money an official saves the road, if he doesn’t hold the confidence and liking of the general run of railroad workers, he is distinctly not a success.”

“Oh! Do you believe that?” she cried.

“I know it. Railroad workers are the most clannish men in the world. If they have worked long for a particular road they are as loyal to that road as though they owned it. And they resent any meddling with the usual routine of affairs. You have got to handle them with gloves. I fancy, Miss Cherry,” added Ralph somewhat grimly, “that your father has thrown away his gloves.”

They just then came to the Hopkins house. It was one of the best houses in the section of Rockton in which Ralph and his mother lived. It was rather far from the railroad and the railroad tenements; so supervisor Hopkins’ employees were not likely to be seen often.

“Come in—do,” urged Cherry, opening the gate. “There’s father at the library window.”

The young dispatcher saw Barton Hopkins looking through the pane. He was a man with a very high forehead, colorless complexion, a high-arched nose upon which were set astride a pair of shell-rimmed eyeglasses, which masked pale blue eyes. One could warm up to a chunk of ice about as readily as one could to Mr. Barton Hopkins.

And yet, Ralph was sure, there was not a thing the matter with the supervisor save that he was not human! He was a machine. His mental powers were not lubricated with either charity or an interest in the personal affairs of his fellow men.

He stared without a semblance of emotion at Ralph Fairbanks as Cherry urged the latter into the library and introduced the young fellow.

“Oh, yes. I know Mr. Fairbanks,” said Mr. Hopkins, and looked the visitor over as though he questioned if he might not in some way show Ralph how to be more efficient in his job.

When Cherry explained volubly how she had been attacked by the rowdies at the railroad crossing and Ralph had come to her assistance, Mr. Hopkins rose and shook hands with the visitor again. But his second handshake was exactly like the first one. Ralph thought of grasping a dead fish!

“There are too many unemployed men hanging about the yards,” said the supervisor in his decisive way, after Cherry had excused herself in order to change to a clean dress. “I am about to point that out to our police department. They should either be given a sentence to the farm or be run out of town.”

“A good many of those idlers have been employees of the road. Their homes are here. It is not exactly their fault that they have been thrown out of work. And they do not understand why they should be idle.”

“What is that to the Great Northern?” demanded the supervisor with some hauteur. “A railroad is a corporation doing business for gain. It is not a charitable organization.”

“It should be both,” declared Ralph earnestly. He felt that he could oppose this man safely. Hopkins could not touch his department. “The way the Great Northern—and this division particularly—has kept together a loyal bunch of workmen is by caring for those workmen and their families through dull seasons. I understand that a man has been lopped off each section gang of late. In three cases I know that the man discharged owned, or was paying for, his own little home. They are up against it, for other work is not easily obtained now.”

“I have had that brought to my attention before,” answered Mr. Hopkins, with a gesture of finality. “I repeat, it does not interest me—or the Great Northern.”

“It is going to interest you, I fear,” said Ralph warmly.

“I do not understand you, Mr. Fairbanks.”

“The men are getting down on you,” said the young fellow bluntly. “As you see they insult and threaten Miss Cherry and your wife. There will be some outbreak——”

“Do you think that if I knew that to be true it would influence me in the least?” asked Mr. Hopkins sternly.

“It would better. Your wife and daughter are likely to suffer. Of course, the discharged men will probably not have anything to do with it; but they cannot control their sympathizers. There is talk of a strike. If a strike comes——”

“Suppose you let such matters be handled by your superiors, Mr. Fairbanks,” said the supervisor coldly. “It is not in the province of a train dispatcher.”

“Quite true,” Ralph said, rising abruptly.

Cherry had not come back into the room. He felt that he really was not welcome here. And he feared he might be tempted to say something even more unwise to the stiff-necked supervisor.

“You will excuse me, Mr. Hopkins. I really think your daughter and wife are in some danger if they go downtown. Pardon me for saying so.”

“Thank you,” said Barton Hopkins without an ounce of expression in either his voice or his countenance. “Good-day, Mr. Fairbanks.”

“Humph!” thought Ralph, as he fumbled for the knob of the front door. “I reckon I know where I get off with Mr. Hopkins. Oh, yes!”

CHAPTER III
A GOOD DEAL TO THINK OF

It was growing dusk as Ralph Fairbanks left the bungalow occupied by the divisional supervisor and his family. The young fellow felt some little disappointment at not seeing Cherry again. He believed that the girl’s mother had deliberately kept her from coming back into the library where the dispatcher had been talking with Barton Hopkins.

“Not that I wanted to talk with the super,” considered Ralph, as he found his way out of the house and closed the door behind him. “I would much rather have not done so. He’s got an eye as cold as ice. I wonder if he wasn’t hatching something in his keen brain right then to make our department more efficient,” and Ralph chuckled grimly.

“Oh, well, I guess I am out of his line, come to think of it. But he is certainly going to come a cropper before he gets through in Rockton. When the Brotherhoods begin to take notice of him, the Great Northern will lose its——Hullo! What’s this?”

As he came out through the gateway he saw several shadowy figures across the street. The street lamps were not yet lighted in this block and it was just dark enough for those figures Ralph saw to seem uncertain.

Of course, he had no expectation of being followed. He had no quarrel with any branch of the union men. In fact, most of the employees on the division were Ralph Fairbanks’ personal friends.

But he looked twice at the shadowy group as he turned toward his mother’s cottage. Again he looked back.

“There he goes!” suddenly shouted a voice. “One of Hopkins’ tools. Yah! A lickspittle of the super. Yah!”

It is a fact that “sticks and stones can break your bones, but names will never hurt you”; just the same, that old saw does not salve over the sting of unfair vituperations. Ralph was red hot on the instant.

To be dignified, too, is all very well. But Ralph knew these hoodlums quite well enough to be sure that only one course with them would make the proper impression. He possessed as much brute courage as any healthy young fellow. And he did not purpose to allow these loafers to blackguard him on the public street.

The dispatcher turned swiftly and started across the street. The several men and boys in the group yelled again. Some missile hurtled through the dusk and fairly fanned Ralph’s cheek!

“Who are you rascals?” demanded Ralph angrily. “I’ll show you a thing or two!”

He dashed at the group. None of them was very courageous, for the crowd broke and fled before him. Some woman, looking out of the window of a neighboring house, screamed. Ralph caught one fellow and pulled him back, throwing him heavily to the walk.

“I’ll find out who you are!” declared the young train dispatcher. “What do you mean by interfering with me?”

The other fellows had fled noisily. The street lights suddenly flashed up and Ralph was able to distinguish the features of the man he had captured.

“Whitey Malone! I thought you were in jail,” the young dispatcher said in surprise. “The judge gave you long enough there——”

“I got me fine paid,” blubbered the fellow.

Ralph smelled liquor on his breath. He knew Whitey Malone as a good deal of a disgrace to the community. He had never been a real railroad man. He was merely a hanger-on at the shops, sometimes doing odd jobs, or being taken on the shop payroll for a few weeks.

“It is too bad anybody was foolish enough to pay your fine,” declared Ralph sternly.

“Oh, I’ve got good friends in spite of Bart Hopkins and his new rules that turned me out of me job,” snarled Whitey.

“And a good friend paid your fine?” remarked Ralph curiously. “Could the friend be Andy McCarrey, for instance?”

“You want to know too much, Fairbanks,” said Whitey sullenly.

“I’m a good guesser,” rejoined the young dispatcher, dragging the fellow to his feet. “Now, listen to me, Whitey. This time I’ll let you go. I won’t turn you over to the police as you deserve.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” cried Whitey.

“You tempt me too far and I’ll show you right now what I dare to do. You keep away from Supervisor Hopkins’ house.”

“Yah! You’re one of his tools, you are!” exclaimed Whitey.

“Listen!” commanded Ralph, shaking him.

“Ow! Ow! Ouch!”

“Listen! You keep away from this street! And further, don’t you trouble Mr. Hopkins’ wife or daughter. Remember, I’ve got your number. If you throw another cabbage or annoy the Hopkins’ family in any way, you’ll go to the farm.”

He threw the ill-smelling fellow from him and turned sharply to walk away. Whitey could not resist another word. He yelled:

“Hopkins’ tool! You wait a while, Ralph Fairbanks. You’ll see what’s going to happen.” Then he ran off at top speed.

Ralph did not attempt to follow the fellow. To punish the half-drunken Whitey Malone would be as useless as fencing with a windmill. If anything was to be done to avert trouble and put fear of the law into the bad element around the railroad yards and shops, those higher up must feel the weight of authority. Whitey and his ilk were quite irresponsible.

Ralph told his mother the tale at the supper table, relating the entire incident from the moment he had seen Cherry Hopkins attacked by the rowdies.

“Just the same, there is trouble brewing,” he added. “It will center about Mr. Bart Hopkins. And yet, I can’t blame the G. M. for backing the super up. Mr. Hopkins is a wonderfully able man. But discipline means more to him than the contentment and happiness of his employees.”

“I am sorry if there is going to be more trouble on the road, Ralph,” the widow said, with a sigh.

“Oh, it won’t affect me any,” he said cheerfully. “I have nothing to do with the shopmen or the maintenance of way men.”

“I thought you were safely out of trouble when you got in the train dispatchers’ department,” said Mrs. Fairbanks reflectively. “But just see what happened in war time. Your peril on that army train——”

“Shucks! Nothing like that is likely to happen again, Mother,” he interrupted. “I’m a regular stick-in-the-mud now. Youngest chief dispatcher of any division of the Great Northern system. Why! I’m an old man.”

“You are just as likely as ever to be tempted to do a reckless thing,” she said, but she smiled at him. “An old man! You are just a baby to me, Ralph, after all.”

He laughed; but he blushed, too.

“Don’t baby me too much, Mother,” he said. “The girls don’t think I am a baby.”

“Indeed?” she asked. “Are there more girls? I don’t know but you are in more danger off the road, than on.”

“A new one,” said Ralph frankly. He and his mother were the very best of friends. “Didn’t I tell you the new super has a daughter? And she’s a peach! No! I mean she is a Cherry.”

“Cherry?”

“Cherry Hopkins. She is the girl I saw home just now.”

“Is she as pretty as her name?” asked Mrs. Fairbanks curiously.

“You bet she is! I’d like to have you see her. I don’t see how such a cold and severe proposition as Mr. Hopkins ever came by such a daughter.”

“So you think well of her, do you?” asked the widow rather wistfully.

“I surely do. But I don’t know what she thinks of me. You know how these girls are. They keep everything close. A fellow doesn’t have a chance to learn their opinion of him. They treat ’em all alike.”

“Quite right,” returned the widow. “The reticent girl keeps out of danger.”

“Humph! I don’t know how much danger she keeps out of,” said Ralph. “But believe me, if something is not done pretty soon to appease the shopmen it will not be safe for either Cherry or her mother to walk on the streets.”

“Well, my dear boy,” begged the widow, “I hope you will keep out of any part in the trouble. You surely cannot help Mr. Hopkins.”

“He wouldn’t let me help him if I could do so,” answered Ralph.

“All the better,” his mother said with satisfaction. “If you cannot be drawn into the trouble by either side in the controversy, very well. I shall feel safe, at least.”

“I guess I am out of it, for once,” admitted her son. “It gives a fellow a lot to think of. I hate to see trouble come to the division. That Andy McCarrey ought to be jailed. But, on the other hand, I feel that Barton Hopkins is quite as much at fault. By gracious! If I were the G. M.——”

At that his mother burst into laughter. “Oh! You are looking forward to what you would do if you were running the Great Northern,” she jeered.

“I don’t care,” cried her son. “I can see as far into a brick wall as the next one. And when I know things are going wrong——”

“You think you could fix them all up, Ralph?”

“I know I could keep things straighter than Hopkins does. Maybe I would not be so popular with the directors and stockholders; but I’d run this division without having so much friction. You can bet on that, Mother.”

“I never bet,” she replied soberly, but her eyes dancing.

She enjoyed hearing Ralph become enthusiastic over railroad matters. Having been a railroader’s wife and having joined with her husband in all his hopes and intentions, she could appreciate Ralph’s enthusiasm.

“Well, if you were betting, I could give you a tip,” laughed Ralph at last. “One of two things is going to happen. Either Mr. Hopkins will be transferred to some other sphere of usefulness, or the division is due to suffer the worst strike it has ever had. I am confident of this, Mother—I am confident.”

CHAPTER IV
ZEPH FATHERS AN IDEA

Under the present arrangement of his duties as chief dispatcher for the division, Ralph Fairbanks seldom took the “graveyard trick,” as it is called. Yet occasionally he went downtown and looked in at the office in the late evening.

Especially when he knew that a particular schedule was being put through. Just now the division was handling extra wheat trains, and although he had O.K.’d his assistant’s schedule for that night, Ralph somehow felt that he should see if all was going smoothly on this particular evening.

The trouble over Mr. Hopkins and his daughter had perhaps gotten on the young chief dispatcher’s nerves—if he really possessed such things. He tried to read an exciting book of travel and adventure after supper while his mother did some darning; but exciting things which had happened in his own career came to Ralph’s mind so insistently that he lost the thread of the writer’s story. With several friends, including Mr. Bob Adair, chief of the Great Northern’s detective force, Ralph had fought many an enemy of the road to a standstill. There was another person, too, who was sure to turn up in the vicinity of any railroad trouble.

Ralph suddenly started out of his chair. “There!” he exclaimed, as his mother looked at him wonderingly. “I had forgotten something. Do you know who I thought I saw to-day downtown?”

“I have no idea, Ralph.”

“I believe Zeph is in Rockton. I saw a fellow who looked very much like him passing along the street. But it was when I was in conference with the G. M. and I could not hail him. Afterward—being mixed up in Miss Hopkins’ trouble, and all—I forgot Zeph.”

“Zeph Dallas?” repeated Mrs. Fairbanks. “I would dearly love to see the boy again. He is so unsettled.”

“He is a bird on the wing, I guess,” said Ralph. “Never know where he will perch next. But while he is in Rockton I think I know where to find him,” and he reached his hat down from its peg.

“Will you go downtown to look him up, Ralph?” asked the widow placidly.

“Yes, ma’am. I’d like to see Zeph.”

“So would I. Bring him home with you, Ralph. You know we have a spare bed, and Zeph Dallas is just as welcome to it as though he were your brother.”

“I don’t know,” laughed Ralph, going to the door. “Zeph is a born vagabond. Nothing keeps him long in one place but some intrigue in which he can have a part. He says he is preparing himself to wear Bob Adair’s shoes.”

“Mr. Adair is a very fine man,” said Mrs. Fairbanks. “But his calling is hazardous. I should not like to bring up a son to be a detective.”

“Zeph never had any bringing up,” declared Ralph, as he went out, and the echoes of his mother’s last remark, “Poor fellow!” rang in his ears as he started downtown.

Like most railroad terminal towns, Rockton had a poor section, inhabited by railroad laborers and those hanging to their skirts, and also a much better group of dwellings. Ralph passed through the better part of town without, of course, apprehending any trouble.

Nor was he accosted when he crossed the tracks and approached the station, over which the dispatchers’ offices were situated. For his first thought was, after all, of the night’s schedule. One cannot have the responsibility that Ralph Fairbanks shouldered without having one’s work uppermost in one’s mind all of the time.

The two men on duty welcomed their young chief cheerfully. There really was not an employee of the road about the Rockton terminal who had not some reason for liking Ralph. They might not all agree with him on railroad matters; but they had to respect his independence.

“Fellow in here to see you a while back, Chief,” said one of the men on duty.

“Who was it?”

“Nobody I ever saw before,” was the reply. “Kind of an odd stick.” Ralph described his friend, Zeph Dallas, and the operator nodded. “That’s the fellow. Can’t be any mistake.”

“Didn’t he say where he could be found?” asked Ralph.

“No, Chief. A close-mouthed duck, if you ask me. He slipped in and slid out again like an eel through a sewer pipe.”

Ralph laughed. “Some metaphor, I’ll say, Johnny. Well, the sched.’s all right, I guess?”

“Things are going sweet,” he was told. “But when they come to double up those wheat trains next week, how we going to get the new Midnight Flyer into the clear between here and Oxford? That is what is bothering me, Chief.”

“If you want to know,” admitted Ralph, as he opened the door to depart, “that little thing is bothering me, too.”

He was not, however, bothering his mind over railroad affairs when he descended the stairs to the yard. He was thinking of Zeph. That peculiar and vagabondish fellow must be around Rockton for some pertinent design. And it was evident that he wanted to see his old chum, Ralph Fairbanks.

The latter walked down the yard and looked in at the open windows of one of the lighted shops. The night crew was at work on one of the big freight haulers. Like a row of giant elephants a number of other locomotives stood in the gloomy end of the shop. Repairs were away behind schedule. He heard the hoarse voice of McGuire, one of the oldest and most faithful shop foremen, bawling his crew out for their clumsiness.

“It’s touch and go, sure enough,” considered Ralph. “I wonder just how much power that Andy McCarrey has over the men employed by the Great Northern? Of course, he has no standing with any of the Brotherhoods; but these roughnecks—Hullo! Who goes there?”

He had passed the shop and had turned toward a small gate in the stockade which he believed would be unlocked. A shadowy figure flashed into a deeper covert of shadow beside one of the tool houses.

“And only one of two classes try to hide around a railroad yard—a crook or a yard detective. Humph!” muttered Ralph.

He walked on toward the gate. But just as he got to the end of the shed he jumped sidewise and dived into the deeper shadow with arms outstretched. He grabbed somebody almost instantly.

“Stand still!” he commanded. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Instantly the struggling person he had seized stood still. He no longer offered to fight for his liberty. Ralph made out that he was tall—taller than himself—roughly dressed, and that he had lost his hat.

Then, as the young dispatcher passed his hand over the mop of hair the fellow wore and his palm traversed the other’s face, he marked a big and high-arched nose and high cheekbones. He had a wide mouth.

“By George!” exclaimed Ralph, “I believe you are the fellow I am looking for.”

“Just so,” chuckled his prisoner.

“Zeph!”

“Same to you, Ralph!”

The two shook hands warmly, and then Zeph picked up his cap and stuck it sideways upon his thatch of hair.

“How’s the boy?” asked Zeph, and Ralph knew he was grinning.

“I’ll tell you,” chuckled Ralph. “I’m gravely disturbed over a friend of mine——”

“Is his name Andy McCarrey?” whispered Zeph, with his lips close to his friend’s ear.

“Goodness!” gasped the dispatcher. “What do you mean? I’ve been troubled about a fellow named Dallas. But what do you know about McCarrey?”

“I know enough to believe it is not best to take his name in vain around these yards,” muttered Zeph. “Come on out of here. I’ll give it up for to-night. It was you I wanted to talk to, anyway, Ralph.”

“I don’t understand you at all, Zeph,” complained the young dispatcher, as they walked toward the gate in the yard fence.

“Come on over to the Owl Lunch, and I’ll give you an earful,” said Zeph. “The missus all right?”

“She is fine, and was asking after you. When you come to town, Zeph, you should come to our house.”

“Can’t do it. No knowing who or what may be trailing me,” declared the vagabond.

“Nonsense!”

“That’s the truth. Right now I got the tail end of something that I want to look up. This McCarrey——”

“Is the leader of the men who are trying to engineer the wildcat strike,” explained Ralph.

“Uh-huh? He’s more than that.”

“What do you mean?” Ralph asked curiously.

They stepped into the narrow space in the owl car and climbed on two stools.

“Milk and mince pie,” said Zeph.

“What a stomach!” exclaimed Ralph, smiling. “Don’t you ever have indigestion?”

“That is what I’m ordering it for. I have to stay awake all night. Can’t sleep much with cold milk and ‘graveyard pie’ fighting for possession of the digestive tract.”

“You are as bad as ever,” sighed Ralph.

“Worse,” admitted Zeph, taking his first bite of the pie. Then, out of the corner of his mouth he mumbled: “Know where I just came from?”

“I have no idea. Haven’t heard from you for weeks. You can’t write, I suppose?”

“Never write letters. Have to explain ’em afterward, perhaps. Besides, a letter has often traced a man. ‘Leave no trace’ is my motto.”

“Talk sense,” urged Ralph.

“Am.”

“It doesn’t sound like it. Tell me what makes you so mysterious?”

“I am as mysterious as this ‘graveyard pie,’ ain’t I?” suddenly chuckled Zeph Dallas, holding up the wedge of pie to look at it. “Hullo! Here’s a splinter,” and he picked out the bit of wood. “The beef they ground up for this mince meat must have had a wooden leg. Anyhow, listen.”

“Shoot!” exclaimed Ralph anxiously, sipping his coffee. “Where did you come from?”

“Down the road. I was working for a few days with Section Twenty.”