THE SLUMP "SECRET"
"Wake up, Ralph."
The young dispatcher of Stanley Junction jumped out of bed in a bound.
He felt that he could have slept half a dozen hours longer, but to every
railroad man the call "wake up" means duty waits, no delay, and Ralph
responded to the urgent call without hesitation.
The echo of a series of light tappings on the door and of his mother's
voice mingled with her departing footsteps. He called out:
"What is it, mother?"
"A telephone message from the superintendent."
"Good--something is stirring," reflected Ralph, and hurried his
dressing. "Well, enough has happened since yesterday to interest the
president of the road himself," he went on, musing. "They wanted some
house cleaning done, and it has begun in a vigorous way."
It was early in the afternoon. Just after daybreak that morning Ralph
had reached Stanley Junction on top of a freight car. He had found
Glidden in charge of the situation at the relay station.
"You've hit the mark, Fairbanks," were his first commendatory words.
"The assistant superintendent was here for an hour with me after we got
that rough and tumble message from you down the line."
"It was a cross tree experiment. Wasn't it a jumble?" inquired Ralph.
"We pieced it out, got our bearings, and they're spreading the net to
catch some pretty big fish."
"What of Grizzly and that fellow with him?"
"Sloped. Adair is after them, though. See here, you get right home and
into your cozy."
"But I have something of possible importance to tell the
superintendent."
"He's gone down the line hot-footed. It will all keep till he calls you
up. Left instructions to that effect--'30,' now, and be quick about it!"
"30" it was, perforce. Ralph had gone through a rough night of it. He
was pretty well tired out and glad to get to bed. He went there,
however, with some exciting thoughts in his mind.
There had been no solution to the enigma of the piece of broken box
cover flung from the passing freight train through the window of the
little station. All Ralph could do about that incident was to conjecture
blindly.
It was a queer happening, a suggestive one. Ralph had a fertile
imagination. There was a coincidence about the discovery of the queer
message, and things hinged together in a way. Contiguous to that section
the chicken farm was located, and Glen Palmer, at least his grandfather,
had seemingly linked up with the conspirators against the welfare of the
Great Northern road once or twice before. Ralph could not conceive why
that message had been written. It was a new mystery, but it had come so
secretly upon the heels of a bigger and more important one, that there
was neither time nor opportunity to explore it just at present.
Mrs. Fairbanks, like the true anxious mother that she was, greeted Ralph
on his arrival at home. She had not gone to bed all night, and she now
insisted on his eating an early breakfast and taking a needed rest.
Tired out as he was, however, once alone in his own room Ralph took
this, the first quiet opportunity, to look over the memorandum book that
had fallen from the coat pocket of the train wrecker.
Ralph's eyes expanded and he uttered one or two subdued whistles of
astonishment as he delved among the contents of his find. Some penciled
notes and a letter in the memorandum book told a great deal--in fact, so
much and so clearly and unmistakably, that Ralph could hardly go to
sleep thinking over the importance of his discoveries.
They had to wait, however, till he could again see the superintendent.
Now, as Ralph was roused up out of sleep by a telephone call from that
very official, his active mind was again filled with the theme of the
memorandum book and what it had revealed to him.
When he got down stairs Ralph found that word had come for him to report
to the office of the road as promptly as possible. His mother had an
appetizing lunch spread on the dining room table, and the lad did full
justice to it.
He was thoughtful and busy formulating in his mind just what he would
report at headquarters, and had proceeded less than half a dozen squares
from home when passing an alley his name was called. Looking beyond the
street Ralph recognized Ike Slump. He wore a very mysterious face and he
was urgently beckoning to Ralph. The latter was about to proceed on his
way with a gesture of annoyance, when Slump shouted out:
"You'll be sorry if you don't see me for a minute or two."
"Well, what is it?" inquired Ralph, moving a few feet towards his
challenger.
"I need five dollars."
"Oh, you do?"
"Yes, bad. I want you to give it to me."
"That's cool."
"I've got to get out of town. You'd better let me go."
"I don't see how I am preventing you," said Ralph.
"You will, when I explain."
"Then be quick about it. I have no time to waste."
"Neither have I," remarked Slump, with an uneasy glance towards the
street. "To be short and sweet, I know Glen Palmer."
Ralph started a trifle at this. Slump spoke the name with a knowing look
in his eyes and a sidelong leer that was sinister.
"Well, what of it?" demanded Ralph.
"I thought I'd seen him before the day I met him up at the yards. I
racked my brain to recall him. This morning it all came to me."
"What do you suppose I care about your knowing him?" inquired Ralph.
"Just this: he's a friend of yours, a sort of pet. I understand you
started him in the chicken farming business, so you must have some
interest in him. All right, I can snip him out of his position of glory
double quick," asserted Ike, in a malevolent and threatening way.
"Go ahead, what are you driving at?" asked Ralph as calmly as he could.
"Five dollars--that's what it will cost you to keep your friend from
being exposed. Five dollars, and I bury the secret fathoms deep."
"In other words," said Ralph, trying hard to suppress his feelings, "you
want to blackmail me?"
"Oh, no," assented Slump, "I simply want to sell this photograph," and
he drew a card from his pocket. "I went to heaps of trouble to get it.
It shows that I did see Glen Palmer before. It was where we were both
locked up in jail," shamelessly confessed Slump.
Ralph was a good deal taken aback. The words of Slump and the photograph
he extended rather took the young railroader's breath away. The portrait
was that of a boy dressed in a convict suit, a number on his cap, and
the background showed the surroundings of a prison room.
"It's too bad," spoke Ralph involuntarily. He was thinking of his
misplaced trust in the Palmer boy. All his dark suspicions concerning
the old grandfather and the conspirators were instantly revived in the
mind of Ralph.
"Ain't it, though?" smirked Slump. "Is it worth the price?"
"No!" suddenly shouted Ralph, in a tone so stern and ringing that the
discomfited Slump fell back several feet. "You miserable jail bird and
swindler, I wouldn't help you on your wretched career of crime for five
cents let alone five dollars. Furthermore, Glen Palmer may have been in
jail, but I won't believe he belonged there till I have the proofs."
"Oh, won't you?" sneered Ike. "All right. Don't want to reform him, eh?
Won't give the downtrodden and oppressed a chance. You're a heavy
philanthropist, you are, Mr. Ralph--let go!"
Slump took a sudden whirl. From behind a fence there suddenly pounced
down upon him a towering form. Ralph was as much surprised as Slump to
recognize Bob Adair, the road detective.
The diligent officer gave Slump one or two more whirls, holding on to
his coat collar, that made him shriek with affright. Then he threw him
reeling ten feet away.
"I gave you two hours to get out of town this morning," he observed.
"Now then it's two minutes to head straight for the limits, or I'll lock
you up as a vagrant."
Ike picked up his fallen cap on the run. He darted down the alley in a
flash.
"I don't know but what I would have liked to find out something more
from him," remarked Ralph.
"Oh, I overheard the subject of your conversation," said Adair--"about
that missing boy, Glen Palmer, I suppose you mean?"
"Missing--is he missing, Mr. Adair?"
"Since the day after you told me about him, and his grandfather and the
queer company he kept," replied Adair. "I went down to the chicken farm
to find that young Palmer had sold it out to a neighbor for a song and
had vanished."
"Why, that is queer," commented Ralph. "I fancied he had got a new lease
of life when I started him in business."
"Decidedly mysterious, the whole affair," added the road detective.
"That will all come out when we see the superintendent. We're both due
at his office."
"I was just going there," said Ralph.
"And I was on my way to meet you," explained Adair.
They walked on together for a short distance. Suddenly Adair drew out a
bulky pocket book well stuffed with papers. He selected a folded yellow
sheet.
"Here's something that belongs to you," he said. "There's a good deal to
go over, so get that off our minds. Glidden handed it to me this noon."
"What is it?" asked Ralph.
"A telegram."
"So it is. Why--"
Ralph paused there. If he had been astonished at the discovery of the
board message back at the little station, the present scrap of paper
doubly mystified him.
It was the mere fragment of a telegram, no heading, no date, and it
read:
"Advise Ralph Fairbanks, Stanley Junction. Look out for the pacer."