The boy was completely at home in the water, but the present instance
was somewhat extraordinary. The shock and chill of his daring jump,
added to his naturally weakened condition after Cohen's stunning blow
with the pitcher, helped to confuse him. But he never lost his presence
of mind, and as he felt himself deprived of his usual buoyancy, he
struck out under water for the shore.
He waited on the bank long enough for the water to drip off from him,
and getting his breath, started to regain the railroad tracks.
When he came to a little station he found it closed for the night, but
he knew that the agent must live in some one of the few houses in the
settlement. He might locate him and induce him to come to the station
and telegraph to Stanley Junction. With the aid of a signal lantern,
however, Ralph was able to see the clock in the station. It was a few
minutes after ten o'clock.
"There's a train reaches the Junction at eleven twenty-five," he
reflected. "By hustling I can catch it at Acton. I can tell more and
do more personally in five minutes than I can in five hours by wiring."
Ralph reached Acton some minutes before the West train came in. He had
some change in his pocket, paid his fare to the Junction, and went out
on the rear platform as they neared the destination.
He left the train a mile from the depot, swinging off at a point that
would enable him to reach the roundhouse foreman's house by a short cut.
Ralph found the place closed up. There was a light in one upper room,
however, and he had only to knock twice when Forgan came to the door in
his shirt-sleeves.
"Is it you, Fairbanks?" he said, in some surprise.
"Yes, sir, and--special!"
"Why, what have you been into?" exclaimed Forgan, catching a glimpse of
Ralph's bedraggled form and disfigured head.
"I have been in a freight car for one thing, and in the river for
another," said Ralph. "There is no time to lose, Mr. Forgan, if you
want to get back those stolen fittings."
"You know where they are?"
"I know where they were at eight o'clock," responded Ralph, "but I know
they won't be there much after midnight.
"Good--wait a minute," directed Forgan.
He hurried back into the house and returned drawing on his coat. "I was
just going to bed," he explained. "Now, then, Fairbanks," as he led the
way to the street. "Tell your story--quick."
Ralph recited his experience of the past four hours, and Forgan hastened
his steps as the narration developed the necessity of sharp, urgent
action.
"Fairbanks, you are a trump!" commended Forgan, as the story was all
told. "I'll leave you here. You get home, into dry clothes, and have
your hurt attended to. You had better take the sick-list benefits for a
day or two. Good-night--till I have something more definite to say to
you."
A dismissal did not suit Ralph at all. It looked like crowding him out
of an exciting and interesting game only half-finished.
"I might help you some further," he began, but Forgan interrupted him
with the words:
"You've done the real work, Fairbanks, and neither of us will care to
muddle in with the details of arrest. I shall put the matter directly
in the hands of the road detective, Matthewson. I am sorry for his
father's sake if Ike Slump gets caught in the net, but he deserves it
fully, and I can't stop to risk the interests of the railway company."
Ralph went home. As he expected, his mother was waiting up for him. She
was not the kind of a woman to faint or get hysterical at the sight of a
little blood, but she was anxious and trembling as she helped Ralph to
get into comfortable trim.
"Don't worry, mother," said Ralph. "This is probably the end of trouble
with the Ike Slump complication."
"I always fear an enemy, Ralph," sighed the widow. "It seems as if you
are fated to have them at every step. I keep thinking day and night
about Gasper Farrington's unmanly threat."
"Mother," said Ralph earnestly, "I am trying to do right, am I not?"
"Oh, Ralph--never a boy better!"
"Thank you, mother, that is sweet praise, and worth going through the
experience that will make a man of me. Well, I am going to keep right
on doing my duty the best way I know how. I expect ups and downs. Men
like Farrington may succeed for a time, but in the end I believe I shall
come out just right."
Ralph found himself a trifle sore and stiff the next morning, but he
started for work as usual. He was curious as to the outcome of the
foreman's action the night previous. Forgan, however, did not show up
at the roundhouse till ten o'clock. He at once called Ralph into his
little office.
"Well, Fairbanks," he said briskly, "I suppose you will be interested to
know the outcome of last night's affair?"
"Very much so," acknowledged Ralph.
"The road detective and myself were at Cohen's before midnight. The
birds had flown."
"Had they moved the plunder, too?"
"Yes, what you described as being in boxes was all carted away."
"And Ike Slump had gone?"
"Presumably. We found that two horses and a wagon belonging to Cohen
were missing. The only person we found, outside of Cohen, was a little
fellow asleep in an outside shed."
"Was his name Teddy?" And Ralph gave a rapid description of the county
farm waif.
"That's the boy. He's in jail with Cohen, now. They want to detain him
as a witness. In Cohen's barn, hidden under some hay, we found two old
locomotive whistles. He claims that he did not know they were there.
The road detective, however, says if we can fasten the least real
suspicion on Cohen and break up his fence, we will have rooted out this
robbery evil, for the crowd he housed and encouraged to steal has
scattered."
"Has Mr. Matthewson tried to overtake the wagon?"
"Yes, he has men out in pursuit. If we can recover those fittings,
Fairbanks, it will be a glad day for me and a lucky one for you."
But with the arrest of Cohen, his release on bail, bound over to appear
before the September grand jury, the affair seemed ended.
The little fellow, Teddy, could not, or would not tell, much and was
also released. Ike Slump's crowd melted away, and Ike Slump, and his
tramp friend, and Cohen's two horses and wagon, and the boxed-up brass
fittings, had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and
swallowed them up.