Chapter XVIII: The Slump "secret"

"Wake up, Ralph."

The young dispatcher of Stanley Junction jumped out of bed in a bound. He felt that he could have slept half a dozen hours longer, but to every railroad man the call "wake up" means duty waits, no delay, and Ralph responded to the urgent call without hesitation.

The echo of a series of light tappings on the door and of his mother's voice mingled with her departing footsteps. He called out:

"What is it, mother?"

"A telephone message from the superintendent."

"Good--something is stirring," reflected Ralph, and hurried his dressing. "Well, enough has happened since yesterday to interest the president of the road himself," he went on, musing. "They wanted some house cleaning done, and it has begun in a vigorous way."

It was early in the afternoon. Just after daybreak that morning Ralph had reached Stanley Junction on top of a freight car. He had found Glidden in charge of the situation at the relay station.

"You've hit the mark, Fairbanks," were his first commendatory words. "The assistant superintendent was here for an hour with me after we got that rough and tumble message from you down the line."

"It was a cross tree experiment. Wasn't it a jumble?" inquired Ralph.

"We pieced it out, got our bearings, and they're spreading the net to catch some pretty big fish."

"What of Grizzly and that fellow with him?"

"Sloped. Adair is after them, though. See here, you get right home and into your cozy."

"But I have something of possible importance to tell the superintendent."

"He's gone down the line hot-footed. It will all keep till he calls you up. Left instructions to that effect--'30,' now, and be quick about it!"

"30" it was, perforce. Ralph had gone through a rough night of it. He was pretty well tired out and glad to get to bed. He went there, however, with some exciting thoughts in his mind.

There had been no solution to the enigma of the piece of broken box cover flung from the passing freight train through the window of the little station. All Ralph could do about that incident was to conjecture blindly.

It was a queer happening, a suggestive one. Ralph had a fertile imagination. There was a coincidence about the discovery of the queer message, and things hinged together in a way. Contiguous to that section the chicken farm was located, and Glen Palmer, at least his grandfather, had seemingly linked up with the conspirators against the welfare of the Great Northern road once or twice before. Ralph could not conceive why that message had been written. It was a new mystery, but it had come so secretly upon the heels of a bigger and more important one, that there was neither time nor opportunity to explore it just at present.

Mrs. Fairbanks, like the true anxious mother that she was, greeted Ralph on his arrival at home. She had not gone to bed all night, and she now insisted on his eating an early breakfast and taking a needed rest. Tired out as he was, however, once alone in his own room Ralph took this, the first quiet opportunity, to look over the memorandum book that had fallen from the coat pocket of the train wrecker.

Ralph's eyes expanded and he uttered one or two subdued whistles of astonishment as he delved among the contents of his find. Some penciled notes and a letter in the memorandum book told a great deal--in fact, so much and so clearly and unmistakably, that Ralph could hardly go to sleep thinking over the importance of his discoveries.

They had to wait, however, till he could again see the superintendent. Now, as Ralph was roused up out of sleep by a telephone call from that very official, his active mind was again filled with the theme of the memorandum book and what it had revealed to him.

When he got down stairs Ralph found that word had come for him to report to the office of the road as promptly as possible. His mother had an appetizing lunch spread on the dining room table, and the lad did full justice to it.

He was thoughtful and busy formulating in his mind just what he would report at headquarters, and had proceeded less than half a dozen squares from home when passing an alley his name was called. Looking beyond the street Ralph recognized Ike Slump. He wore a very mysterious face and he was urgently beckoning to Ralph. The latter was about to proceed on his way with a gesture of annoyance, when Slump shouted out:

"You'll be sorry if you don't see me for a minute or two."

"Well, what is it?" inquired Ralph, moving a few feet towards his challenger.

"I need five dollars."

"Oh, you do?"

"Yes, bad. I want you to give it to me."

"That's cool."

"I've got to get out of town. You'd better let me go."

"I don't see how I am preventing you," said Ralph.

"You will, when I explain."

"Then be quick about it. I have no time to waste."

"Neither have I," remarked Slump, with an uneasy glance towards the street. "To be short and sweet, I know Glen Palmer."

Ralph started a trifle at this. Slump spoke the name with a knowing look in his eyes and a sidelong leer that was sinister.

"Well, what of it?" demanded Ralph.

"I thought I'd seen him before the day I met him up at the yards. I racked my brain to recall him. This morning it all came to me."

"What do you suppose I care about your knowing him?" inquired Ralph.

"Just this: he's a friend of yours, a sort of pet. I understand you started him in the chicken farming business, so you must have some interest in him. All right, I can snip him out of his position of glory double quick," asserted Ike, in a malevolent and threatening way.

"Go ahead, what are you driving at?" asked Ralph as calmly as he could.

"Five dollars--that's what it will cost you to keep your friend from being exposed. Five dollars, and I bury the secret fathoms deep."

"In other words," said Ralph, trying hard to suppress his feelings, "you want to blackmail me?"

"Oh, no," assented Slump, "I simply want to sell this photograph," and he drew a card from his pocket. "I went to heaps of trouble to get it. It shows that I did see Glen Palmer before. It was where we were both locked up in jail," shamelessly confessed Slump.

Ralph was a good deal taken aback. The words of Slump and the photograph he extended rather took the young railroader's breath away. The portrait was that of a boy dressed in a convict suit, a number on his cap, and the background showed the surroundings of a prison room.

"It's too bad," spoke Ralph involuntarily. He was thinking of his misplaced trust in the Palmer boy. All his dark suspicions concerning the old grandfather and the conspirators were instantly revived in the mind of Ralph.

"Ain't it, though?" smirked Slump. "Is it worth the price?"

"No!" suddenly shouted Ralph, in a tone so stern and ringing that the discomfited Slump fell back several feet. "You miserable jail bird and swindler, I wouldn't help you on your wretched career of crime for five cents let alone five dollars. Furthermore, Glen Palmer may have been in jail, but I won't believe he belonged there till I have the proofs."

"Oh, won't you?" sneered Ike. "All right. Don't want to reform him, eh? Won't give the downtrodden and oppressed a chance. You're a heavy philanthropist, you are, Mr. Ralph--let go!"

Slump took a sudden whirl. From behind a fence there suddenly pounced down upon him a towering form. Ralph was as much surprised as Slump to recognize Bob Adair, the road detective.

The diligent officer gave Slump one or two more whirls, holding on to his coat collar, that made him shriek with affright. Then he threw him reeling ten feet away.

"I gave you two hours to get out of town this morning," he observed. "Now then it's two minutes to head straight for the limits, or I'll lock you up as a vagrant."

Ike picked up his fallen cap on the run. He darted down the alley in a flash.

"I don't know but what I would have liked to find out something more from him," remarked Ralph.

"Oh, I overheard the subject of your conversation," said Adair--"about that missing boy, Glen Palmer, I suppose you mean?"

"Missing--is he missing, Mr. Adair?"

"Since the day after you told me about him, and his grandfather and the queer company he kept," replied Adair. "I went down to the chicken farm to find that young Palmer had sold it out to a neighbor for a song and had vanished."

"Why, that is queer," commented Ralph. "I fancied he had got a new lease of life when I started him in business."

"Decidedly mysterious, the whole affair," added the road detective. "That will all come out when we see the superintendent. We're both due at his office."

"I was just going there," said Ralph.

"And I was on my way to meet you," explained Adair.

They walked on together for a short distance. Suddenly Adair drew out a bulky pocket book well stuffed with papers. He selected a folded yellow sheet.

"Here's something that belongs to you," he said. "There's a good deal to go over, so get that off our minds. Glidden handed it to me this noon."

"What is it?" asked Ralph.

"A telegram."

"So it is. Why--"

Ralph paused there. If he had been astonished at the discovery of the board message back at the little station, the present scrap of paper doubly mystified him.

It was the mere fragment of a telegram, no heading, no date, and it read:

"Advise Ralph Fairbanks, Stanley Junction. Look out for the pacer."