TREACHERY
The heavy freight train broke in two. The locomotive plowed on for a
few rods, and stopped. The switcher which Ralph Fairbanks was driving
stopped just opposite the wreck.
One glance was all that was necessary to show Ralph the cause of the
disaster. The four heavily laden gondolas had been allowed to run a
few feet too far. The corner of the gondola at the end stuck out over
the curve of the switch and the first box car on Number Twenty-eight
had caught upon its steel corner.
This corner had ripped the sides of two box cars open; then the ruined
cars had crashed over onto the other main track. Two following cars
had jumped the rails and——
“A four hour job for the wrecking crew, aside from the damage done,”
declared Ralph to Nagle, when he came running up with Dooley, the
yardmaster. “Where is the brakie you sent to guard that tail-end,
Nagle?”
“The rascal!” yelled the conductor. “He’s taken it on the run. We
haven’t had him on the line but a few weeks. It is my opinion there
are a lot of wabblies got jobs on this division just for the chance of
hurting the road.”
“I’ll fix ’em if I catch ’em!” yelled Dooley, almost frothing at the
mouth he was so wild.
The whistle was blowing the signal for the wrecking crew. All that
Ralph could do was to go on with his task. As it happened, the wreck
would not interfere with getting Number Eighty-seven out of the yard.
He picked up one bunch after another of the cars numbered on his list,
while the derrick was being brought up to clear the tracks and jack
the unhorsed cars upon the rails again. Ralph knew that his assistant
would be much troubled by this break in the schedule; but there were
certain routine things to do about it, and that was all. Trains would
have to be held outside in both directions until the main tracks in
the yard were cleared.
Not more than twenty minutes late the young fellow saw the big mogul
backed down to the long string of cars and coupled on. The switcher
was steaming on a side track, waiting for the next job. Eighty-seven
pulled out of the yard safely and soon its parting hoot-too-hoot!
could be heard beyond the hill.
“Now what?” asked Ralph, as Dooley came along with another clip of
papers in his hand.
So much had been going on during the last few minutes that he had
quite forgotten his own schedule. The excited Dooley was about to pass
him up his list for the next freight when a tall figure came striding
across the tracks from the vicinity of the wreck.
“Cheese it!” gasped the fireman. “Here comes the Great-I-Am.”
Mr. Barton Hopkins showed in his face about as much expression as
Ralph had ever seen him display. And that expression was one of anger.
“What is going on here, Yardmaster?” he demanded harshly. “Are you
ready with your report on that accident yonder?”
“I don’t know much about it,” said the boss doubtfully. “I didn’t see
it. Mebbe Mr. Fairbanks, here——”
This was shifting the responsibility in good truth. At another time
Ralph might have been angry at Dooley. But he knew that the old man
was much perturbed. Mr. Hopkins turned his scowling visage on the
young train dispatcher.
“What is Mr. Fairbanks doing on that switch engine?” asked the
supervisor. “I understand that he was at fault in this accident. He
kicked the pig-iron cars too far over the switch.”
“Look here, Mr. Hopkins!” exclaimed Ralph, leaning from the window of
the little cabin in sudden heat. “Who told you any such thing as
that?”
“I am so informed. My informant will doubtless appear at the proper
time—when the case is thrashed out in my office.”
“I’ll have some testimony to bring in, too, at that,” said Ralph
hotly. “Only I doubt right here and now, Mr. Hopkins, your power to
take me into your office. I am train dispatcher of this division——”
“Stick to your job, then,” put in Mr. Hopkins sharply. “I ask you:
What are you doing on that switch engine?”
Ralph came down from the deck on the run. He tore off the overalls.
His face blazed. He had to wait a moment to control his voice he was
so angry.
“If you think I have stepped in here where I have no business, believe
me, I can get out,” he said. “I had no idea of turning in a time card
for what I was doing. I helped out because I wanted to see things
move. Dooley——”
“Mr. Dooley much overstepped his authority when he allowed you to
drive that switcher. He knew it—and knows it, now.”
“What in thunder would I have done, Mr. Hopkins?” broke in the excited
yardmaster. “Not a man on the list could I call——”
“It was a matter to put up to your superior.”
“Well, now!” roared the angry old man, “where was _you_ when I needed
to start things going after that danged striker hopped his job? Should
I sit down and let the yard go stale and all this freight hang fire
while I waited to consult you, Mr. Hopkins?”
“That is exactly what you should have done,” declared the supervisor
in the same decisive way.
“Great Grief and Jumping Dromedaries!” yelled Dooley, and he literally
went up into the air. “It is no wonder the men are striking. I don’t
blame ’em! I am on strike myself from this moment——”
He threw the clip of papers into the air, and it went hurtling over
the nearest line of boxcars. His cap he snatched from his head and
flung it yards away in the other direction. The man was for the moment
mad!
“I’m on strike! I’m on strike meself!” he bawled. “Me, that’s never
gone out with the boys no matter what happened, for the last thutty
years. I’m on strike!”
“You are mistaken, Dooley,” cut in the icy voice of the supervisor.
“You have not struck. You are discharged. Hand in your time and go.
You are discharged for insubordination and inefficiency. I’ll take
your keys.”
* * * * *
“Well,” said Ralph, talking it over later with his assistant operator
as they were trying to untangle the trains in the yard and those
waiting on the near-by blocks, “we must hand it to supervisor Barton
Hopkins. He is personally efficient. He found a day man to take poor
Dooley’s place, he got a man for the switcher, and he dressed down the
whole yard crew and set them to work again in an hour.”
“But how long are they going to work?” grumbled the operator. “They
all act like whipped dogs. That isn’t the way to run a division.”
“It is his way of running it. And the G.M. says he is suiting the
stockholders and directors right down to the ground. Oh, the railroad
business is on the toboggan!”
“Ha ha!” croaked the operator. “You sound like these other old
stagers. I haven’t been in the game so long as you have, Fairbanks,
although I am older than you. The pay is good and the hours not bad.
Believe me! I’ve had worse jobs than train dispatching.”
“Oh, so have I. But I feel at a time like this that I’d like to be
into the game right, instead of sitting up here overlooking a railroad
yard and making pin-pricks on a road map.”
“Going back to the locomotive lever?”
“Do you know,” said Ralph earnestly and softly, “while I was fiddling
down there on that little old yard engine, I felt _right_. I wouldn’t
want my mother to know it, for she always worried when I had a run,
but I believe I was born for the throttle. I’m an engineer, and I
always will be.”
* * * * *
The morning paper was full of the strike of the shopmen, and the
threat was made by McCarrey that the yardmen and switchers would be
out within twenty-four hours.
“We’re going to stop every wheel from turning on this division of the
Great Northern,” the strike leader told the reporters. “And before we
are through, we’ll plug both ends of the system so tight that the
officials will have to come to our terms.”
“How about the Brotherhoods?” he was asked.
“That is bunk,” McCarrey declared. “The Brotherhood members are
practically all with us. They don’t have to strike. We are going to
strike for them. The roads can’t run trains if they have no shop
workers or maintenance of way men. The engineers and firemen won’t
take out trains after a while when they can’t get repairs made or road
work kept up or switching done. No, sir, we’ve got ’em where we want
’em. Watch us.”
“I guess they ought to be watched, all right,” Ralph told his mother
at his late breakfast. “I wonder what Zeph is doing? I wonder where
Mr. Adair is?”
“I should think you wouldn’t worry about them,” said the widow. “They
have their own work. You have yours, Ralph. Please don’t get mixed up
in this ugly business.”
“I guess you are quite right, Mother,” he said gravely. “I am glad to
be in the train dispatching department. Of course, we are going to
have a great deal of trouble putting any schedule through. But I do
not believe the telegraphers will go on strike. My men, at least, are
faithful.”
“Faithful to you or to the road?” asked his mother.
“To both, I firmly believe,” said Ralph confidently. “Why, I can’t
understand any responsible employee going out for so little cause.
Hopkins has made them all sore, it is true. But they can’t give that
as a good reason. And the cut in wages was only threatened. The
Brotherhoods took their cut months ago, even if it was a bitter pill
to swallow. It is mainly such men as McCarrey who really are not even
railroad men. Why, he never had a job on the Great Northern, as I
understand.”
“Do you actually believe that he followed Mr. Hopkins here to make
trouble?”
“I bet he did. But it is Hopkins’ own fault if he gives McCarrey a
chance to make trouble.” Mrs. Fairbanks sighed. “I am sorry for his
family. You say his daughter is an attractive girl, Ralph?”
“That’s the surest thing you know, Mother,” declared Ralph, smiling
reflectively. “I had her on the wire last evening when I sent word to
her father that the shopmen had gone out. She has a sweet voice.”
His mother looked at him again in some doubt.
“I never knew you to be so greatly interested in a girl before,
Ralph.”
“I never knew a girl before who was so worth while,” he replied. “And
there’s no nonsense about her. You’ll like her when you know her,
Mother.”