TOUCH AND GO
Whitey Malone was on his face, and before he could raise his head and
shriek his objection to the treatment accorded him by Zeph Dallas,
Ralph sprang astride him and held him down. As Whitey struggled the
young dispatcher grabbed his cap from the ground and thrust it into
the fellow’s mouth. Then he twisted his hands behind him and held the
muffled rascal secure.
Ralph was about to use his own handkerchief to bind Whitey’s wrists
when he remembered that it was monogrammed and might offer a clue to
his identity when the affair was over. Therefore he thrust his hand
into the side pocket of his captive’s coat.
There was a bandanna there. When Ralph pulled it out of the pocket
something else came with it—something white that lay on the flagstone
while Ralph lashed Whitey’s wrists. When this job was done neatly and
to his satisfaction the young dispatcher picked up the fallen article
and rose to his feet.
Whitey Malone was groaning and struggling. His cap completely muffled
his voice. He managed to roll over on his back, but he could not spit
out the cap.
Ralph looked scrutinizingly at the thing he had drawn from the man’s
pocket. It was a soiled envelope, sealed. It was not bulky and there
was no address upon it as far as Ralph could see. He thrust it into an
inner pocket and then turned toward the door of the house into which
Zeph Dallas had so recklessly plunged.
Zeph had instructed his friend to call the police if a row was started
upstairs. But Ralph did not want to draw the police into any
investigation of this affair. He did not know yet whether this was
railroad business or not. And, in any event, he was sure that
publicity would do no good.
But he feared for Zeph’s safety. The fellow was so reckless! With
another glance at the prostrate Whitey, the dispatcher sprang up the
steps and opened the unlocked door. There was but a faint glimmer of
light in the hall and that from the floor above.
Where was Zeph? Ralph dared not utter a sound. He closed the door
behind him carefully and made sure that it was tightly shut. Then he
began to grope about the lower hall of the house.
He had brought the spoke of a wheel with him, and the grip of it gave
him confidence. But he did not want to pitch upon his friend by
mistake. He found no trace of Zeph, however. He believed the fellow
must have ventured immediately up the stairs.
Above, Ralph heard the murmur of voices. He started up the flight,
stepping close to the wall so that the stair steps would not squeak.
This was an old and ramshackle building and every beam in it cracked
when the wind blew.
Clinging to the wall, Ralph finally came so near the head of the
flight that he could see across the small hall at the top and into a
big room, the door of which was more than ajar. This loft seemed to be
poorly furnished and it certainly was poorly lighted.
When the man had come to the top of the stairs with the hand lamp, he
had brought the only lamp in the place. Now it stood upon a rickety
table near one wall and he and another man were seated beside it.
Surely the second person was not Zeph Dallas! And yet Ralph could not
see any sign of Zeph. He stepped up on the landing with great care,
and looked into the room. There was absolutely nobody there but the
pair at the table.
Suddenly one of these moved his chair—scraped it back harshly. He
turned to look at the open door.
“What’s the matter with you, Whitey?” he growled out. “Why don’t you
come up here? Did you get what I sent you for?”
Ralph held his breath and remained perfectly still. He had no thought
of answering for Whitey Malone.
But startlingly, though in muffled tone, a gruff voice said just above
him: “What’s that you want? I dunno wot you sent me for. Where’d you
send me?”
The fellow at the table jumped up with an ejaculation more forceful
than polite. “That drunken bum! What’s he been doing, do you suppose,
Grif?”
“You should not have trusted him, Andy,” returned the second man. “I
told you what he was.”
The first speaker strode heavily toward the door. Ralph realized that
he was about to be discovered. And he knew something else, too: That
was, that his reckless friend, Zeph Dallas, was on the next flight
above, and had sought to imitate Whitey Malone’s voice.
“Nice mess I’m in,” thought the young train dispatcher.
He crouched, but gripping the spoke, his only weapon. If it came to a
fight, he purposed to have the best of the argument—and have it quick.
He was sure he knew who this fellow approaching the door was. The
other man did not have to repeat his name.
“Whitey! what the dickens is the matter with you?” called the man.
“You know what I sent you for. Didn’t you see Perrin?”
Ralph started. Perrin was a name he knew well. Jim Perrin was an
officer of the shopmen’s union. The union had an agreement with the
Great Northern which ran well into the next year. That was one reason
why the better element of union labor on the road would not discuss a
strike at this time.
But, to Ralph’s mind, Jim Perrin was a sly and unfaithful fellow. He
had a bad reputation in the neighborhood where he lived. He drank and
gambled and had other habits that were inexcusable.
If there was a secret association between Jim Perrin and these
men—especially with this fellow approaching the door——
Ralph was thinking of this; but involuntarily his arm went up—the arm,
the hand of which gripped the spoke of the wheel. He poised the club.
And just then, as the man’s head was thrust out of the doorway like a
turtle’s out of its shell, that crazy Zeph yelled from above:
“Hit him, boy! Hit him!”
It startled Ralph so that he made a fumble of it. While he hesitated
the man drew back his head with a cry of rage, and the next moment he
produced a pistol and thrust it into the hall!
He could not have aimed at either of the young fellows; but both of
them were startled. It was touch and go—the bullet might find its
billet in either of their bodies if the man fired.
“Who’s there?” he yelled.
Ralph sprang half way down the stairs. He heard Zeph going up the
other flight on the jump. The man yelled again for his comrade to aid
him in the chase.
Before Ralph reached the lower door he heard a window smashed above
and knew that Zeph Dallas had found a fire escape. He tore open the
outer door of the house and bounded through. The faint lamplight from
above must have revealed his figure, for Zeph shouted:
“Out of the way, below! Stand aside!”
He had come down the fire escape ladder on the run. There was no
ladder to the ground, of course, and he swung from the lower platform
to drop.
Ralph, hearing the men coming down the lower flight of stairs, turned
and banged to the outer door and held it. The men tried to turn the
knob, but the young train dispatcher had a grip of iron.
“All right, boy!” shrilled Zeph, as he dropped. “Where’s that chap I
overturned?”
“He’s thrashing on his back there,” said Ralph coolly. “Let him alone.
Be ready to run.”
“That’s the thing I’m most ready for,” admitted Zeph. “Come on!”
Ralph leaped away from the door and followed his friend up the alley.
They were a block away in two minutes, and were not followed. Ralph
overtook Zeph and dragged him down to a walk.
“Gee!” exclaimed Dallas, “that was a close call——”
“And a silly one,” declared the train dispatcher. “Another of the
times when you jumped without looking. You had no business in that
house.”
“Yes, I had. Wasn’t that Andy McCarrey?”
“It was.”
“Well, I’ll know him again then. I never saw him before.”
“If that is all you wanted,” said Ralph with some scorn, “I could have
pointed him out to you a dozen times a day. He doesn’t hide himself.”
“Huh! He was hiding away to-night, I guess.”
“Perhaps. But it did you no good to let him know that his actions were
observed and his private messenger followed.”
“Oh! You mean that Whitey?”
“That is whom I mean.”
“I bet he had something on him we ought to have got hold of,” said
Zeph, with sudden excitement. “Did you hear what McCarrey said? And
was that Jim Perrin he meant, do you suppose?”
“Like enough,” said Ralph soberly. “I am afraid Jim is into this
strike scheme with both feet.”
“The union ought to bounce him.”
“He has a lot of friends. But perhaps if it could be proved that he
had a secret agreement, or understanding, with McCarrey——”
“Wish we’d searched that Whitey,” growled out Zeph, shaking his head
mournfully.
“If you didn’t always jump into a thing without first looking!”
exclaimed Ralph. “Well, where are you stopping?”
“I’ve got a room on Pearl Street. You know the place? But I didn’t
think of sleeping to-night.”
“And you won’t, after that milk and mince pie and the acrobatic
activities you have just indulged in,” said Ralph, chuckling. “I’ll go
over to the room with you. We can talk there. I’ve got something to
show you.”
“Huh?” questioned Zeph, curiously.
In five minutes they reached the poorly furnished rooming-house in
which Zeph was usually sheltered when he came to Rockton. It seemed as
though he had a horror of living in good quarters, or as ordinarily
respectable people lived.
“You surely are foolish, Zeph,” declared Ralph. “There’s a good bed
and room at your disposal at our house. Mother was only speaking of it
this evening. And yet you prefer a ranch like this.”
“As I told you, I never know what sort of a mess I may be getting
into. Don’t want to make your mother trouble. Couldn’t think of doing
more than coming to Sunday dinner and eating chicken.”
“That’s a promise,” agreed Ralph, smiling. “I’ll order a pair of
chickens from the butcher in the morning.”
“Now, what’s the big idea?” asked Zeph, softly, closing his room door
after having pulled the electric light chain to illuminate the place.
Ralph looked at him grimly. “Yes,” he said, “Whitey had been on an
errand for McCarrey, and probably to Jim Perrin’s house. He was
bringing some message, or the like, from Jim.”
“You’re guessing,” said Zeph. “We ought to have searched Whitey, as I
said.”
Ralph drew out the sealed envelope that he had taken from Whitey
Malone’s pocket with his bandanna. He held it out to Zeph.
“I guess this is what Whitey carried,” he said quietly.
“Gee, you did search him!” exclaimed the other happily. “You smart
kid!”
“The luck of fools,” rejoined Ralph, with some disdain. “If it is
anything of importance I can’t accept praise any more than you can.”
But Zeph was already tearing open the envelope.