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[Illustration: For a beginner that's the best schedule I ever saw.]
RALPH, THE TRAIN DISPATCHER
OR
THE MYSTERY OF THE PAY CAR
BY
ALLEN CHAPMAN
AUTHOR OF "RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE," "RALPH IN THE SWITCH TOWER,"
"RALPH ON THE ENGINE," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
THE RAILROAD SERIES
By Allen Chapman
Cloth. 12mo. Illustrated
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
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York
Copyright, 1911 by GROSSET & DUNLAP
Ralph, the Train Dispatcher
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I--THE OVERLAND EXPRESS
CHAPTER II--THE WRECK
CHAPTER III--TROUBLE BREWING
CHAPTER IV--THE WIRE TAPPERS
CHAPTER V--IKE SLUMP
CHAPTER VI--IN THE TUNNEL
CHAPTER VII--DANGER SIGNALS
CHAPTER VIII--THE OLD SWITCH SHANTY
CHAPTER IX--A SUSPICIOUS DISCOVERY
CHAPTER X--THE TRAIN DISPATCHER
CHAPTER XI--MAKING A SCHEDULE
CHAPTER XII--AT THE RELAY STATION
CHAPTER XIII--"HOLD THE LIMITED MAIL!"
CHAPTER XIV--OLD 93
CHAPTER XV--CHASING A RUNAWAY
CHAPTER XVI--THE WRECK
CHAPTER XVII--A STRANGE MESSAGE
CHAPTER XVIII--THE SLUMP "SECRET"
CHAPTER XIX--ON THE LOOKOUT
CHAPTER XX--A TRUSTY FRIEND
CHAPTER XXI--A DASTARDLY PLOT
CHAPTER XXII--HOLDING THE FORT
CHAPTER XXIII--ONE MINUTE AFTER TWELVE
CHAPTER XXIV--THE BATTLE OF WITS
CHAPTER XXV--A WILD NIGHT
CHAPTER XXVI--AN AMAZING ANNOUNCEMENT
CHAPTER XXVII--THE STOLEN PAY CAR
CHAPTER XXVIII--THE "TEST" SPECIAL
CHAPTER XXIX--"CRACK THE WHIP!"
CHAPTER XXX--THE PAY CAR ROBBER
CHAPTER XXXI--QUICK WORK
CHAPTER XXXII--CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I
THE OVERLAND EXPRESS
"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.
The proudest moment in the life of the young engineer, however, seemed
to have arrived when Ralph was awarded the crack run of the road, as
told in the fourth volume of this series entitled "Ralph on the Overland
Express."
The reader who has followed the upward and onward course of the railroad
boy through these volumes will remember how he made friends everywhere.
They were all the better for his bright ways and good example. It was
Ralph's great forbearance and patience that overcame the grumpiness and
suspicion of the cross-grained Lemuel Fogg and made of him a first-class
fireman. It was Ralph's kindly encouragement that brought out the
inventive genius of a capital young fellow named Archie Graham, and
helped Limpy Joe, a railroad cripple, to acquire a living as an eating
house proprietor.
A poor waif named Van Sherwin owed his rise in life to the influence of
the good-hearted young engineer, and Zeph Dallas, a would-be boy
detective, was toned down and instructed by Ralph until his wild ideas
had some practical coherency to them.
Ralph had his enemies. From time to time along his brisk railroad career
they had bobbed up at inopportune junctures, but never to his final
disaster, for they were in the wrong and right always prevails in the
end. They had tried to upset his plans on many an occasion, they had
tried to disgrace and discredit him, but vainly.
In "Ralph on the Overland Express" the young engineer did some pretty
big things for a new man at the throttle. He carried a train load of
passengers through a snowstorm experience that made old veterans on the
road take notice in an astonished way, and he made some record runs over
the Mountain Division that established the service of the Great Northern
as a standard model.
All this success not only ranked in the minds of his enemies, but roused
the envy and dissatisfaction of rival roads. For some time vague hints
had been rife that these rivals were forming a combination "to put the
Great Northern out of business," if the feat were possible, so both
Ralph and his loyal fireman kept their eyes wide open and felt that they
were on their mettle all of the time.
Ralph's last exploit had won him a high place in the estimation of his
superiors. With every train out of Rockton stalled, he and Fogg had made
a terrifying hairbreadth special run to Shelby Junction, defying floods,
drifts and washouts, landing the president of the road just in the nick
of time to catch a train on a parallel rival line.
The event had enabled that official to close an advantageous
arrangement, in which time was the essence of a contract which gave the
Great Northern the supremacy over every line in the district having
transcontinental connections.
The Great Northern had won the upper hand through this timely but not
tricky operation. Naturally, baffled, rival roads had been upset by the
same. A revengeful feeling had extended to the employees of those lines,
and the warning had been spread broadcast to look out for squalls, as
the other roads had given the quiet tip to its men, it was understood,
to take down the Great Northern a peg or two whenever occasion offered.
Of all this Ralph was thinking as they passed the flag station at Luce,
and shot around the long curve guarded by a line of bluffs just beyond.
The young engineer was thinking of home, and so was Fogg, for they were
due in twenty-three minutes now.
Suddenly Ralph reached out for the lever lightning quick, and then his
hand swept sand and air valves with the rapidity of an expert playing
some instrument.
Crack!
Under the wheels of the big locomotive a detonating clamor rang
out--always a vivid warning to the nerves of every wide-awake railroad
man.
"A torpedo--something ahead," spoke Ralph quickly.
"What did I tell you?" jerked out his fireman excitedly. "I felt it in
my bones, I told you it was about time for something to happen."
The young engineer steadied the locomotive down to a sliding halt like a
trained jockey stopping a horse on the race track. The halt brought the
nose of the locomotive just beyond the bluff line so that Ralph could
sweep the tracks ahead with a clear glance.
"It's a wreck," announced the young engineer of the Overland Express.