Allen Chapman - Ralph on the Engine - or, The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail

“Well, well,” said Zeph, staring around the place one way, then the other, and then repeating the performance. “This strikes me.”

“Interesting to you, is it?” asked Ralph.

“It’s wonderful. Fixed this up all alone out of odds and ends? I tell you, I’d like to be a partner in a business like this.”

“Want a partner here, Joe?” called out Ralph to his friend in a jocular way.

“I want a helper,” answered the cripple, busy among the shining cooking ware on a kitchen stove at one end of the restaurant.

“Mean that?” asked Zeph.

“I do. I have some new plans I want to carry out, and I need some one to attend to the place half of the time.”

Again Zeph glanced all about the place.

“Say, it fascinates me,” he observed to Ralph. “Upon my word, I believe I’ll come to work here when I get through with this work for you.”

“Tell you what,” said Limpy Joe with a shrewd glance at Zeph, as he placed the smoking dishes before his customers. “I’ll make it worth the while of an honest, active fellow to come in here with me. I have some grand ideas.”

“You had some good ones when you fitted up the place,” declared Zeph.

“You think it over. I like your looks,” continued Joe. “I’m in earnest, and I might make it a partnership after a while.”

The boys ate a hearty meal, and the young fireman paid for it.

“Business good, Joe?” he inquired, as they were about to leave.

“Famous. I’ve got some new customers, too. Don’t know who they are.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t, for a fact.”

“That sounds puzzling,” observed Ralph.

“Well, it’s considerable of a puzzle to me – all except the double pay I get,” responded Joe. “For nearly a week I’ve had a funny order. One dark night some one pushed up a window here and threw in a card. It contained instructions and a ten-dollar bill.”

“That’s pretty mysterious,” said the interested Zeph.

“The card told me that if I wanted to continue a good trade, I would say nothing about it, but every night at dark drive to a certain point in the timber yonder with a basket containing a good solid day’s feed for half-a-dozen men.”

“Well, well,” murmured Zeph, while Ralph gave quite a start, but remained silent, though strictly attentive.

“Well, I have acted on orders given, and haven’t said a word about it to anybody but you, Ralph. The reason I tell you is, because I think you are interested in some of the persons who are buying meals from me in this strange way. It’s all right for me to speak out before your friend here?”

“Oh, certainly,” assented Ralph.

“Well, Ike Slump is one of the party in the woods, and Mort Bemis is another.”

“I guessed that the moment you began your story,” said Ralph, “and I am looking for those very persons.”

“I thought you would be interested. They are wanted for that attempted treasure-train robbery, aren’t they?”

“Yes, and for a more recent occurrence,” answered Ralph – “the looting of the Dover freight the other night.”

“I never thought of that, though I should have done so,” said Joe. “The way I know that Slump and Bemis are in the woods yonder, is that one night I had a breakdown, and was delayed a little, and saw them come for the food basket where I had left it.”

Ralph’s mind was soon made up. He told Joe all about their plans.

“You’ve got to help us out, Joe,” he added.

“You mean take you up into the woods in the wagon to-night?”

“Yes.”

“Say,” said Joe, his shrewd eyes sparkling with excitement, “I’ll do it in fine style. Ask no questions. I’ve got a plan. I’ll have another breakdown, not a sham one, this time. I’ll have you two well covered up in the wagon box, and you can lie there until some one comes after the basket.”

“Good,” approved Ralph, “you are a genuine friend, Joe.”

Ralph and Zeph had to wait around the restaurant all the afternoon. There was only an occasional customer, and Joe had plenty of time to spare. He took a rare delight in showing his friends his treasures, as he called them.

About dusk Joe got the food supply ready for the party in the woods. He hitched up the horse to a wagon, arranged some blankets and hay in the bottom of the vehicle, so that his friends could hide themselves, and soon all was ready for the drive into the timber.

Ralph managed to look out as they proceeded into the woods. The wagon was driven about a mile. Then Joe got out and set the basket under a tree.

A little distance from it he got out again, took off a wheel, left it lying on the ground, unhitched the horse, and rode away on the back of the animal. The vehicle, to a casual observer, would suggest the appearance of a genuine breakdown.

“Now, Zeph,” said Ralph as both arranged their coverings so they could view tree and basket clearly, “no rash moves.”

“If anybody comes, what then?” inquired the farmer boy.

“We shall follow them, but with great caution. Keep close to me, so that I can give you special instructions, if it becomes necessary.”

“Good,” said Zeph. “That will be soon, for there they are!”

Two figures had appeared at the tree. One took up the basket, the other glanced around stealthily. Ralph recognized both of them, even in the dim twilight, at some distance away. One was Ike Slump, the other his old-time crony and accomplice, Mort Bemis.

“That’s the fellow who brought the package of silk to old Ames,” whispered Zeph, staring hard from under covert at Slump.

“Yes, I recognize him,” responded Ralph in quite as guarded a tone. “Quiet, now, Zeph.”

Ike Slump and Mort Bemis continued to linger at the tree. They were looking at the wagon and beyond it.

“Say,” spoke the former to his companion, “what’s wrong?”

“How wrong?” inquired Mort.

“Why, some way our plans appear to have slipped a cog. There’s the wagon broken down and the boy has gone with the horse. Two of our men were to stop him, you know, and keep him here while we used the wagon.”

“Maybe they’re behind time. What’s the matter with our holding the boy till they come?”

“The very thing,” responded Ike, and, leaving the basket where it was, he and Mort ran after Limpy Joe and the horse.

“Get out of here, quick,” ordered Ralph to Zeph. “If we don’t, we shall probably be carried into the camp of the enemy.”

“Isn’t that just exactly the place that you want to reach?” inquired the farmer boy coolly.

“Not in this way. Out with you, and into the bushes. Don’t delay, Zeph, drop flat, some one else is coming.”

It was a wonder they were not discovered, for almost immediately two men came running towards the spot. They were doubtless the persons Ike Slump had referred to, for they gave a series of signal whistles, responded to by their youthful accomplices, who, a minute later, came into view leading the horse of which Limpy Joe was astride.

“We were late,” panted one of the men.

“Should think you were,” retorted Ike Slump. “This boy nearly got away. Say, if you wasn’t a cripple,” he continued to the young restaurant keeper, “I’d give you something for whacking me with that crutch of yours.”

“I’d whack you again, if it would do any good,” said the plucky fellow. “You’re a nice crowd, you are, bothering me this way after I’ve probably saved you from starvation the last week.”

“That’s all right, sonny,” drawled out one of the men. “We paid you for what you’ve done for us, and we will pay you still better for simply coming to our camp and staying there a prisoner, until we use that rig of yours for a few hours.”