"HOLD THE LIMITED MAIL!"
Ralph pressed closer to his loophole of observation at the amazing
announcement of Grizzly, the traitorous train dispatcher.
"A wreck, you say?" observed Mason, in a dubious and faint-hearted tone
of voice.
"Oh, nobody will get hurt," declared Grizzly lightly. "What's the matter
with you? Haven't you got any nerve? I said there was a thousand apiece
in this, didn't I?"
"I know you did."
"So, don't weaken about the knees when I give the word, but do just as I
tell you. This affair to-night is a mere flyspeck to what's coming along
in a week."
"Suppose--suppose we're found out?" suggested Mason.
"We get out, isn't that all? And we get out with good friends to take
care of us, don't we?"
"I suppose that's so," admitted Mason, but he shifted about in his seat
as if he was a good deal disturbed.
Grizzly glanced again at the clock. Then he returned to his instrument.
In a minute or two his fingers worked the key. Ralph watched and
listened with all his might. What the operator did was to notify the
dispatcher at Wellsville that he might go off duty, signing
headquarters. Before he did this he spoke a few quick words that Ralph
did not catch. Mason had selected some tools from his bag, and at once
went nimbly aloft among the cable wires.
Ralph heard Mason fussing among the wires. He could only surmise what
the two men were up to. The way he figured it out was that Mason had cut
the wires running from the north branch through the relay into
headquarters. He had thus completely blocked all messages from or to the
north branch.
Mason came back to the operating room looking flustered and nervous.
"Nothing open north?" inquired Grizzly.
"Not on the Preston branch."
"That's right. We can splice 'em up again after two o'clock. Things will
do their happening between now and then, and we leave no trace."
"See here, Grizzly," pleaded Mason in a spasmodic outburst of agitation;
"what's the deal?"
"What good will it do you to know?"
"Well, I want to."
"All right; there's to be a runaway. There's an old junk engine down
beyond Wellsville doing some dredging work, with a construction crew.
She's to be fired along."
"What for?" inquired Mason, his eyes as big as saucers.
"For instance," jeered Grizzly, with a disagreeable laugh.
"Where's she to run to?"
The operator went to a map tacked to the wall. He ran his finger so
rapidly over it that, the intent Mason standing between, Ralph could not
clearly make out the route indicated.
"Nobody hurt, you see," remarked Grizzly, in an offhanded way. "There
isn't another wheel running on that branch this side of Preston."
"No, but the feeders and cut-ins? Along near Preston the Limited mail
runs twenty miles since they've been bridging the main at Finley Gap."
"She must take her chances, then," observed Grizzly coolly. "Don't get
worried, son. The men working this deal know their business, and don't
want to get in jail."
"What--what is there for me to do." inquired Mason, acting like a man
who had been persuaded to a course that had unnerved and distressed him.
"Set those wires back just as they were, when I give you the word."
"Say, if you don't mind, I'll go somewhere and get a bracer. I'm feeling
sort of squeamish."
Grizzly regarded the speaker with a contemptuous look in his
manifestation of weakness, but he made no remark, and Mason left the
room. Ralph from his point of observation watched him descend the stairs
and close the door after him as he went out into the storm, faced in the
direction of the town.
The young railroader started down the cleat ladder, when Grizzly came
out of the operating room. He looked thoughtful, as if he was uneasy at
his comrade wandering off. As the lower door closed after him, Ralph
decided that he was bent on joining Mason in his search for "a bracer,"
and that now was his chance.
There flashed through the brain of Ralph the situation complete. A wreck
was to happen, why and exactly where he could only guess. Clearly
outlined in his mind, however, was the route ahead and beyond. By a
rapid exertion of memory he could place every train on the road now
making its way through the storm-laden night towards Stanley Junction.
The Great Northern spread out in a quick mental picture like a map.
Ralph decided what to do, and he did not waste a second. He was down the
cleat ladder and up the stairs and into the operating room in a jiffy.
His thought was to give the double danger signal to headquarters and
call for the immediate presence of the head operator or the chief
dispatcher himself, if on duty.
It took him a minute or two to get the exact bearings of the
instruments. At headquarters he was entirely familiar with the rheostat,
wheat-stone bridge, polarized relays, pole changers and ground switches,
but the station outfit was not so elaborate, the in table being provided
only with the old relay key and sounder. His finger on the key, tapping
the double danger challenge for attention, Ralph felt himself seized
from behind.
With a whirl he was sent spinning across the room and came to a halt,
his back against the out table, facing Grizzly. The latter had returned
to the operating room suddenly and silently. His dark, scowling face was
filled with suspicion.
"What's this? Aha, I know you!" spoke the operator. "How did you come
here?" and he advanced to seize the intruder. Ralph read that the fellow
guessed that he was trapped. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes,
and the young railroader knew that he was in a dangerous fix.
One hand of Grizzly had gone to his side coat pocket, as if in search of
a weapon. His shoulders egan to crouch. He was more than a match for
Ralph in strength, and the latter did not know how soon his comrade
Mason might return.
Ralph was standing with his back to the operating table. He put his
hands behind him, quietly facing Grizzly, and let his right hand rest on
the key. Carefully he opened the key and had clicked west twice when,
quick as lightning, Grizzly jumped at him.
"Stop monkeying with that instrument!" he yelled. "You spy!"
There was a struggle, and Ralph did his best to beat off his powerful
and determined opponent, but he tripped across a stool and went flat on
his back on the floor. The operator was upon him in a moment. His strong
hands pinned Ralph's arms outspread.
"You keep quiet if you know what's healthy for you," warned Grizzly.
"You're Fairbanks?"
"Yes, that is my name," acknowledged Ralph.
"And you've been watching us, and you was put up to it. Say, how much do
you know and how many have you told about it?"
Ralph was silent. Just then there was a stamping up the stairs. Mason
came blustering in.
"No lights ahead. I guess the stores are all shut up," he began, and
intercepted himself with a stare at Ralph and a vivid:
"Hello!"
"Don't move!" ordered the telegraph operator in an irascible tone of
voice. "We're in it deep, it seems. Hand over that bunch of rope near
the stove, Mason."
"What are you going to do?"
"Cut for it. I know this fellow, and he isn't here for nothing. Our
game's blown, or it will be. You needn't squirm," he directed at Ralph.
"There's two of us now."
Ralph's hands were tied in front of him and his feet secured, as well.
It was only half-heartedly, however, that Mason assisted. He was pale
and scared.
"Throw him across those blamed instruments, so they will keep quiet,"
ordered Grizzly.
Ralph was roughly thrown upon the table, face downward, so that the
relay was just under his waist. His weight against the armature stopped
the clicking of the sounder. The two men grouped together in a corner,
conversing rapidly and excitedly in undertones.
As luck would have it, Ralph's left hand was in such a position that it
just touched the key. He opened the key and pretended to be struggling
quite a little.
Grizzly came over and gave him a push in the ribs.
"You keep quiet, or I'll find a way to make you," he said, with a fierce
scowl.
Ralph became passive again. As the conspirators resumed their
conversation, however, he began to telegraph softly on the west main
line, which was clear. His objective point was Tipton.
It was here, within the next hour, that the Limited mail would arrive
and, farther on, take the Preston cut-off for twenty miles, unless
stopped. The relay being shut off by his weight, there was no noise from
the sounder, and he sent so slowly that the key was noiseless. Ralph did
not know on whom he was breaking in, but he kept on. He told the exact
state of affairs, repeated the message twice, and trusted to luck. Then
his last clickings went over the wire:
"T.B.I. T.I.S.--Hold the Limited Mail. Answer quick."