Allen Chapman - Ralph, the Train Dispatcher - or, The Mystery of the Pay Car

“Those men will bear watching-they are up to some mischief, Fairbanks.”

“I thought so myself, Mr. Fogg. I have been watching them for some time.”

“I thought you would notice them-you generally do notice things.”

The speaker with these words bestowed a glance of genuine pride and approbation upon his companion, Ralph Fairbanks.

They were a great pair, these two, a friendly, loyal pair, the grizzled old veteran fireman, Lemuel Fogg, and the clear-eyed, steady-handed young fellow who had risen from roundhouse wiper to switchtower service, then to fireman, then to engineer, and who now pulled the lever on the crack racer of the Great Northern Railroad, the Overland express.

Ralph sat with his hand on the throttle waiting for the signal to pull out of Boydsville Tracks. Ahead were clear, as he well knew, and his eyes were fixed on three men who had just passed down the platform with a scrutinizing glance at the locomotive and its crew.

Fogg had watched them for some few minutes with an ominous eye. He had snorted in his characteristic, suspicious way, as the trio lounged around the end of the little depot.

“Good day,” he now said with fine sarcasm in his tone, “hope I see you again-know I’ll see you again. They’re up to tricks, Fairbanks, and don’t you forget it.”

“Gone, have they?” piped in a new voice, and a brakeman craned his neck from his position on the reverse step of the locomotive. “Say, who are they, anyway?”

“Do you know?” inquired the fireman, facing the intruder sharply.

“I’d like to. They got on three stations back. The conductor spotted them as odd fish from the start. Two of them are disguised, that’s sure-the mustache of one of them went sideways. The old man, the mild-looking, placid old gentleman they had in tow, is a telegrapher.”

“How do you know that?” asked Ralph, becoming interested.

“That’s easy. I caught him strumming on the car window sill, and I have had an apprenticeship in the wire line long enough to guess what he was tapping out. On his mind, see-force of habit and all that. The two with him, though, looked like jail birds.”

“What struck me,” interposed Fogg, “was the way they snooked around the train at the two last stops. They looked us over as if they were planning a holdup.”

“Yes, and they pumped the train hands dry all about your schedule,” declared the brakeman. “Cottoned to me, but I cut them short. Seemed mightily interested in the pay car routine, by the way.”

“Did, eh,” bristled up Fogg. “Say, tell us about that.”

“Why, you see-There goes the starting signal. See you again.”

The brakeman dropped back to duty, and the depot and the three men who had caused a brief ripple in the monotony of a routine run were lost in the distance. For a few minutes the fireman had his hands full feeding the fire, and Ralph, eyes, ears and all his senses on the alert, got in perfect touch with throttle, air gauge and exhaust valve.

Ralph glanced at the clock and took an easy position on his cushioned seat. Everything was in order for a smooth run to twenty miles away. The Overland Express was on time, as she usually was, and everything was in trim for a safe delivery at terminus.

Fogg hustled about. He was a restless, ambitious being, always finding lots to do about cab and tender. His brows were knitted, however, and every once in a while he indulged in a fit of undertoned grumbling. Ralph watched him furtively with a slight smile. He knew that his companion railroader was stirred up about something. The young engineer had come to understand the quirks and turns and moods of his eccentric helper, just as fully as those of his beloved engine.

“I say,” broke out Fogg finally, slamming down into his seat. “It’s about time for something to happen, Fairbanks.”

“Think so?” queried Ralph lightly.

“Been pretty smooth sailing lately, you see.”

“That’s the way it ought to be in a well-regulated family, isn’t it, Mr. Fogg?”

“Humph-maybe. All the same, I’m an old bird and know the signs.”

“What signs are you talking about, Mr. Fogg?”

“Our machine balked this morning when she took the turntable, didn’t she?”

“That was because the wiper was half asleep.”

“Thirteen blew out a cylinder head as we passed her-13, an unlucky number, see?”

“That’s an every-day occurrence since the high pressure system came in.”

“White cow crossed the track just back a bit.”

“Nonsense,” railed Ralph. “I thought you’d got rid of all those old superstitions since your promotion to the best job on the road.”

“That’s it, that’s just it,” declared the fireman with serious vehemence-“and I don’t want to lose it. Just as I say, since we knocked out the sorehead crew of strikers and made the big record on that famous snowstorm run on the Mountain Division, we’ve been like ducks in clear water, smooth sailing and the best on earth none too good for us. It isn’t natural. Why, old John Griscom, thirty years at the furnace, used to get scared to death if he ran two weeks without a broken driving wheel or a derail.”

“Well, you see we’re on a new order of things, Mr. Fogg,” suggested Ralph brightly. “They’ve put us at the top-notch with a top-notch machine and a top-notch crew. We must stay there, and we’ll do it if we keep our heads clear, eyes open and attend strictly to business.”

The fireman shook his head fretfully and looked unconvinced. Ralph knew his stubborn ways and said nothing.

The young engineer of the Overland Express was in the heyday of satisfaction and contentment. He was proud of his present position, and was prouder still because he felt that he had earned it through sheer energy and merit. As Fogg had declared, the appearance of the three men noted had something sinister about it, but the fireman was always getting rattled about something or other, fussy as an old woman when the locomotive was balky. Ralph insisted upon enjoying to the limit the full measure of prosperity that had come to him.

Both had fought hard to secure the positions they now held, however, and the mere hint of a break in the pleasant programme set them up in arms instanter. They had chummed together and had learned to love the staunch, magnificent locomotive that pulled the Overland Express as if it was a fellow comrade, and would have had a pitched battle any time with the meddler or enemy who plotted injury to the prize train of the Great Northern.

All this had not been accomplished without some pretty hard knocks. Looking back in retrospect now, Ralph could fancy his progress to date as veritable steps in the ladder of fortune. It had all rounded out so beautifully that it seemed like a dream. Now the thought of trouble or disaster reminded him gravely of the foes he had known in the past, and the difficult places he had battled through in his steadfast march to the front rank.

Ralph Fairbanks had taken to railroading as naturally as does a duck to water. His father had been one of the pioneer builders of the Great Northern. In the first volume of the present series, entitled “Ralph of the Roundhouse,” the unworthy scheme of Gasper Farrington, a village magnate, to rob Ralph’s widowed mother of her little home was depicted. That book, too, tells of how Ralph left school to work for a living and win laurels as the best engine wiper in the service.

Ralph’s next step up the ladder, as told in the second volume of this series, called “Ralph in the Switch Tower,” led to his promotion to the post of fireman. The third volume of the series, “Ralph on the Engine,” showed the routine and adventures of an ambitious boy bound to reach the top notch in railroad service.