Ralph walked in the direction of the switch tower.
He noticed that all the tracks seemed unusually inactive, even for the
noon hour. The main rails were perfectly clear, and a good many
locomotives were on the sidings.
Glancing up at the switch tower, Ralph was a good deal surprised to
notice that it was entirely unoccupied.
This was startling. Ralph had never known that post of the service to
be untenanted at any hour of the day or night.
Then he noticed on the out main rails near the tower a handcar. A
trackman stood with his hands on the pumping bar. One foot on the car,
his watch in his hand, old Jack Knight was looking impatient and
excited.
"Hustle, Fairbanks!" he shouted, and Ralph came up on a sharp run.
"Here," spoke Knight, extending a slip of paper to Ralph. "Get down to
the depot master, double-quick. Then hustle back to the tower. I'm
bound for the limits tower, to keep things straight there."
"Why, what's up, Mr. Knight?" inquired Ralph.
"Mile-a-minute special from the north, due at 1.15. You've got fifteen
minutes. The out tracks are set for the 1.05 express all right. Soon
as she passes, set the out main after her so the special will take the
in tracks to the limits. No. 6 will wait at the limits while we shoot
the special to the out again."
"A special?" repeated Ralph, in some bewilderment, "and from the
north----"
"Obey orders," interrupted Knight crisply. "Nothing to move except the
express till the special passes. Understand? Don't lose any time. Get
that slip to the depot master, and hurry back to the tower."
"All right," spoke Ralph promptly.
He started on a run for the depot, as Knight sprang to the handcar and
it was whirled down the rails.
Ralph had a right to be mystified. There was no special in place on the
depot tracks. The Great Northern had its terminus at Stanley Junction.
There was a single track running north from the depot, but it was not in
use. It had been built by the Great Northern to connect with a belt
line fifteen miles distant, all equipped as to rails, switches, and
roadbed. Then the holding companies had some squabble. Suits and
counter-suits had tied up the line, and it was temporarily out of
service on an injunction.
Ralph therefore comprehended that it was only over this stretch of road
that any special could be expected from the north. Further, he decided
that it must be a very important special that could gain the right of
way under existing legal complications and interrupt the regular system
of the Great Northern.
However, the order was out and Ralph had definite instructions. He made
the depot in three minutes, and darted into the private office of the
depot master without ceremony.
That official looked nervous and engrossed. He clicked at a telegraph
instrument with one hand, while he hastily unfolded and scanned the slip
of paper Ralph had brought.
"Very good," he nodded. "Clear tracks to Springfield. If they boost
the special along on the other sections as well as we have done on this,
and our president can score a mile-a-minute run, he can reach his dying
wife in time."
Ralph hurried back towards the switch tower. He fancied he now
understood the situation. The brief words of the depot master had been
enlightening.
He guessed that the president of the road at a distance had been
apprised of serious illness in his family. Perhaps the attendant
physician had wired a time limit. If the anxious husband hoped to see
his stricken wife before she died, he must exert every privilege he
controlled as the head of a great railroad system.
Ralph reflected that he might have been a thousand miles away when he
received the anxious summons. Influence and the wires had possibly
called half a dozen interlocking lines into service. Even the law had
stepped aside, it seemed, to speed the distressed official on his way,
via the north spur of the Great Northern.
The 1.05 express steamed out of the depot just as Ralph reached the
switch tower.
"That clears the situation," he reflected. "Set the out main for the in
switch after she passes. Hark!"
Ralph bent his ear at an unusual sound. This was the echo of a sharp
locomotive whistle--to the north.
"The special is coming," he observed, and naturally with some
excitement--a mile-a-minute dash through the depot and town was a
novelty for Stanley Junction.
There was no one visible in the immediate vicinity of the switch tower.
The unusual quietude of the yards made Ralph think of Sunday. At a
little distance were many engines and freight trains standing on
sidings. They were held inactive on order. Engineers and firemen
lounged on their cab seats, looking down the yards north expectantly.
Ralph rounded the tower structure briskly. He pulled out his watch.
"Four minutes," he spoke, and turned into the lower doorway.
In a jiffy he would be up the ladder. A turn of the lever, and he, too,
could sit down, and from his lofty point of observation leisurely watch
the mile-a-minute special flash by.
Half-way across the lower tower space, Ralph checked himself.
A chill, startled sensation crept over his nerves. He halted with a
shock, gave a vivid stare, and uttered a sharp gasp.
A growl had warned him. Ralph saw a bristling, sinuous form arise from
the floor directly at the bottom of the ladder.
Two fire-balls seemed to glow at him with venom and menace. In a flash
the young leverman realized the situation.
Ralph Fairbanks faced the escaped tiger.