THE WRECK
There was a red lamp out for the Flyer just beyond Timber Brook. Ralph
pulled down to a crawl and set the pilot of his engine almost against
the lamp that had been placed between the rails. Around the next turn
was the wreckage of Number 33.
A white-faced section hand came to Ralph’s side of the cab while the
detectives climbed down and started ahead along the right of way.
“What happened to her?” the young engineer asked the laborer.
“They set up two ties between the rails and the old mill was thrown
off the track. It carried half the train with it. Only one car—the
smoker—overturned, but everybody was badly shaken up.”
“How many killed?” gasped Ralph anxiously.
“Not a one. Lucky, I call it. And only a dozen or so hurt to any
amount.”
The hospital outfit that had come from Shadow Valley Station went by
on a trot. Ralph was eager to leave his post and to go forward to
satisfy himself about Cherry Hopkins, but he could not do this at
once.
He could not pull the train forward, for the locomotive of Number 33
was across the westbound track. Finally, after some minutes of
suspense, he was informed by wire from the station just passed that
the delayed Flyer was to remain where it was until the rails were
cleared. He could not have run it back, anyway, for the fire was now
burning on both sides of the right of way.
Leaving Stilling in command of the locomotive, and with the
conductor’s permission, Ralph finally got away and hurried around the
curve to the scene of the eastbound train’s wreck.
The wrecking train from Oxford was on the scene, and a big crew was at
work clearing the rails. But Ralph saw that he would be very late when
he pulled into Hammerfest that morning.
He saw Frank Haley, and the detective told him that, without a doubt,
the wreck had been caused by ghouls working in the pay of the wildcat
strike leaders.
“They knocked out one of our guards, and he only came to after the
accident had occurred. He is in the hospital car. He tells me a
curious thing, Fairbanks.”
“What is that?” asked the young engineer.
“He says that at least one of the men who attacked him had his head
and face muffled in a flour sack. He had cut a hole through it to see
through. Didn’t that fellow at Hardwell report that the bandit that
held him up and robbed the station the other night was masked in that
way?”
“He did. I talked with Fiske myself,” Ralph agreed. “And I had my
doubts then that the fellow was merely a robber. In this case it seems
to be proved that he did not wreck the train to rob the passengers.”
“Nothing like that! It was just a ghastly thing, planned to injure the
road. If we could only connect this fellow in the flour-sack mask with
Andy McCarrey and his co-workers, we would have a case that would
surely send Andy over the road to the penitentiary.”
“I hope you get the evidence,” said Ralph heartily.
Ralph’s interest, however, was much more closely held by another
thing. Where was Cherry Hopkins? Had she been injured? Was she one of
those who were in the hospital car that had been brought down from
Oxford coupled to the wrecking train?
Leaving the detective, Ralph hurried to the hospital car. A doctor who
had come down from Shadow Valley Station was just coming out.
“Nothing much I can do,” he said cheerfully. “Everybody is in good
trim. A pretty case of compound fracture, a comminuted fracture of the
left arm, a broken nose and possibly two cases of rib fracture—can’t
really tell without an X-ray examination. And——”
“But who are the cases, Doctor?” Ralph asked in anxiety. “Are they men
or women, or—or girls?”
“No young people hurt at all. I should say the youngest patient was
thirty-five years of age.”
“Great!” exclaimed the young fellow, with a sigh of relief.
The doctor stared at him, then grinned. “You’re a sympathetic person—I
don’t think!”
But Ralph did not stop to explain. He hurried away to mix with the
passengers of the wrecked train who hung upon the fringe of the scene
where the wreckers were hard at work. He saw few feminine passengers
in these groups, and nowhere did he see the face and figure he was in
search of.
He entered the cars still standing on the rails and walked through
from one end to the other. Cherry Hopkins was in none of them. He
hesitated at first to speak to anybody about the girl, but finally he
saw the conductor of the wrecked accommodation.
“Wait a moment, Mr. Carlton,” said Ralph, holding the excited man by
the sleeve. “Do you remember if the supervisor’s daughter was one of
your passengers to-night?”
“Supervisor Hopkins’ girl?” exclaimed Carlton. “Why, yes, she was. I
mind seeing her father’s pass, viséed by him for her use. Yes, she
came with us from Shelby Junction.”
“So I understood,” said Ralph. “Have you seen her since the accident?”
“Why, I—No, I haven’t, Fairbanks!”
Ralph followed Carlton back through the train. Most of the women were
gathered in one car. Carlton asked briskly if any of them had seen
Miss Cherry, Supervisor Hopkins’ daughter.
Several of the women remembered the girl.
“She was not hurt. I am sure of that,” said one woman whose arm was in
a sling, “for she helped bandage my arm. Then, it seems to me, she ran
out of the car to see what was going on. I have not seen her since.”
Nobody else remembered having seen her since soon after the wreck.
Carlton, the conductor, had done all he could to aid Ralph in his
quest. The latter was forced to go back to his own train without
finding the supervisor’s daughter.
One thing that he had learned, however, quieted the young fellow’s
anxiety. It seemed quite sure that Cherry had not been hurt when
Number 33 left the track. If she could help her fellow passengers
after the accident, she was in no need of attention herself.
His relief was not so great, however, as he desired. He had not seen
and spoken with the girl. Three hours later, when he finally got his
train to Hammerfest, he wired the man he knew would be in charge of
the train dispatching at Rockton, this question:
“Find out for me secretly if Miss Hopkins has arrived with
other passengers of wrecked 33.”
Before he pulled out of Hammerfest on the return trip the answer to
his question was handed up to him by the local telegraph operator:
“No. Hop. is crazy. What do you know? Girl disappeared at
scene of wreck.”