IT HAPPENS AGAIN
As soon as he got back to the train dispatchers’ department Ralph put
in a call for main headquarters and Mr. John Glidden. After a time the
switchboard operator called him and Ralph went into the booth.
“How do the schedules go, Ralph?” asked Mr. Glidden, after briefly
greeting his young friend. “I hear you are having trouble.”
“Trouble enough. That Midnight Flyer is the worst thing on our hands
just now, however.”
“Number Two-o-two?”
“Yes, sir. Two hundred and two. Believe me! It’s like crowding a fat
man through a Pullman ventilator.”
“Well, what else is the trouble?”
“As I have told you a dozen times, Mr. Glidden, we are short-handed.”
“I know! I know, boy! But this system is having an economical streak
and I am afraid I cannot squeeze you through another assistant, Ralph.
Not just now.”
“It better be now, or it will be too late,” declared Ralph. “This
efficiency expert that is running things at this terminal is going to
get to the board and show ’em that I can run this office with a
cripple and a fifteen year old boy, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“You mean the super?” exclaimed Mr. Glidden.
“I see you are a good guesser.”
“Barton Hopkins is the limit!” exclaimed the chief dispatcher of the
Great Northern. “I had no idea he would have the impudence to
interfere in our affairs.”
“I’m telling you. He has just now told me how I can work two shifts a
day myself and so save one man’s salary.”
“Don’t pay the least attention to him, Ralph!” said Mr. Glidden
earnestly.
“Just the same I have an idea that you are going to hear from him. And
he’ll go higher up. He is as persistent as a red ant.”
“And just about as useful,” growled out Glidden over the wire. “And I
never did see that ants were of much use in spite of all the
philosophers. They are just a nuisance when they get into the sugar.”
This made Ralph laugh, and when he hung up the telephone receiver he
felt better. He knew he had a friend at headquarters who would do his
best to look out for his interests.
That afternoon, however, he had the sample of Mr. Hopkins’ dislike for
him that he had expected. When he left the railroad building and
walked down South Main Street to do an errand for his mother, he saw a
little electric runabout take the crossing at Hammerby Street and turn
toward one of the big department stores. He knew the car at a glance,
for he had seen Cherry Hopkins and her mother driving it many times.
The women entered the store and Ralph went on about his business. Half
an hour later he was returning when he spied several young men walking
ahead of him toward the department store into which Mrs. Hopkins and
Cherry had disappeared. One of these fellows the train dispatcher
identified as Whitey Malone.
As the gang lurched along the sidewalk, taking up more than their
share of the way, Ralph fell to a slower pace and watched them.
Opposite the Hopkins car the gang halted. Whitey stooped and seemed to
be examining the wheels on that side. Ralph quickened his pace, for he
had a feeling that Whitey Malone would do almost any mean trick which
might hurt any of the Hopkins family.
In a moment Malone got to his feet and started after his friends. A
small boy walking near Ralph began to giggle.
“What’s all the joy, kid?” the young dispatcher asked curiously.
“Didn’t you see that?” demanded the youngster.
“I didn’t see anything, I guess,” rejoined the puzzled Ralph.
“That white-headed feller turned a cute trick then. Say, they are all
doing it! I seen a car last night—”
At that moment Mrs. Hopkins and Cherry came out of the store. A clerk
followed them with bundles. The girl jumped in first and started the
motor. In half a minute her mother and the bundles were likewise
stowed away and the door of the car slammed.
Ralph had halted. He did not want to pass them again. The boy,
giggling still, went along to stand and watch the car. Cherry started
and turned it, heading for the Hammerby Street crossing. Ralph noticed
that the flagman was just coming out of his shack.
The young dispatcher slipped his watch into his palm and looked at it.
Number 43 was about due—was even now wheeling into the mouth of the
yard half a mile away. The run-about would have plenty of time to
cross the track.
Then with a sudden intake of breath, the young fellow started. He had
seen something—evidently the thing the youngster was laughing his head
off about. The tires on the near side of the Hopkins’ car were being
deflated.
“That scoundrel!” exclaimed Ralph.
He knew instantly what Whitey Malone had done. The fellow had loosened
the air valves and gradually, as the weight of the car pressed on the
tires, the inflated rubber flattened. Before the car reached the
crossing it was bumping on that side, and Ralph saw Cherry slowing
down and looking out to see what the matter was.
Unfortunately the girl did not stop immediately. While she was puzzled
about the hobbling car, she ran on. She was half way across the
tracks—exactly straddling the inbound rails, in fact—when the motor
stalled!
The flagman, who was waiting to drop the gates when the supervisor’s
car got over, immediately lost his head. He screamed and ran toward
the car, waving his flag. The thunder of the oncoming train grew
rapidly, vibrating on the air. Ralph leaped away after the automobile.
The flagman, seeing the car stop dead, rushed back and dropped the
gates! If the girl could have got the runabout started again, she was
shut off from escape.
“And right on the inbound rails!” gasped Ralph.
He saw the car could not be moved. He did not even speak to Cherry as
he ran. But he grabbed the red flag out of the crossing-man’s hand and
started up the track, waving it madly.
It was a straight way for several rods. He knew the engineer would
soon see him. Yet he almost held his breath until he heard the shriek
of the locomotive whistle as it called for “brakes” and knew that the
driver had set the compressed air as he called the brakemen to their
unexpected duty.
The high front of the big machine plowed toward him, looking as though
it could not be stopped at all! Ralph stepped out from between the
rails when the pilot was almost upon him. He saw the fireman hanging
out of the window on his side of the cabin, staring earnestly ahead.
The runabout seemed doomed. And the two occupants of the car had not
attempted to get out!
“Great heavens, if she hits it!” murmured the young train dispatcher.
He started on a staggering run back to the crossing. He was aware that
a crowd was gathering, seemingly by magic, on both sides of the
crossing. From the south appeared a tall figure that burst through the
narrow opening at the end of the gate and started for the endangered
automobile.
Fire flew from the brakeshoes of the train and the grind and hiss of
the iron threatened flat tires on more than one wheel. Ralph, the
breath sobbing in his throat, continued to stumble on over the cinder
path.
The tall figure he knew was that of Mr. Barton Hopkins. The supervisor
had chanced to come along just in season to see the danger of his wife
and daughter.
But Ralph knew well enough that the man—no more than Ralph
himself—could do nothing to aid the victims of this threatened
disaster.