Ralph, the Train Dispatcher: or, The Mystery of the Pay Car

Ralph’s last exploit had won him a high place in the estimation of his superiors. With every train out of Rockton stalled, he and Fogg had made a terrifying hairbreadth special run to Shelby Junction, defying floods, drifts and washouts, landing the president of the road just in the nick of time to catch a train on a parallel rival line.

The event had enabled that official to close an advantageous arrangement, in which time was the essence of a contract which gave the Great Northern the supremacy over every line in the district having transcontinental connections.

The Great Northern had won the upper hand through this timely but not tricky operation. Naturally, baffled, rival roads had been upset by the same. A revengeful feeling had extended to the employees of those lines, and the warning had been spread broadcast to look out for squalls, as the other roads had given the quiet tip to its men, it was understood, to take down the Great Northern a peg or two whenever occasion offered.

Of all this Ralph was thinking as they passed the flag station at Luce, and shot around the long curve guarded by a line of bluffs just beyond. The young engineer was thinking of home, and so was Fogg, for they were due in twenty-three minutes now.

Suddenly Ralph reached out for the lever lightning quick, and then his hand swept sand and air valves with the rapidity of an expert playing some instrument.

Crack!

Under the wheels of the big locomotive a detonating clamor rang out-always a vivid warning to the nerves of every wide-awake railroad man.

“A torpedo-something ahead,” spoke Ralph quickly.

“What did I tell you?” jerked out his fireman excitedly. “I felt it in my bones, I told you it was about time for something to happen.”

The young engineer steadied the locomotive down to a sliding halt like a trained jockey stopping a horse on the race track. The halt brought the nose of the locomotive just beyond the bluff line so that Ralph could sweep the tracks ahead with a clear glance.

“It’s a wreck,” announced the young engineer of the Overland Express.

CHAPTER II – THE WRECK

“A wreck, eh, – sure, I know it! Our turn next-you’ll see,” fumed Fogg, as the locomotive came to a stop.

“It’s a freight on the out track,” said Ralph, peering ahead. “Two cars over the embankment and-”

“For land’s sake!” interrupted the fireman, “whiff! whoo! what have we run into, anyway?”

A flying object came slam bang against the lookout window not two inches from Fogg’s nose. A dozen more sailed over the cab roof. With a great flutter half of these dropped down into the cab direct.

“Chickens!” roared Fogg in excitement and astonishment. “Say, did you ever see so many at one time? Where do they ever come from?”

“From the wreck. Look ahead,” directed Ralph.

It was hard to do this, for a second flock of fowls thronged down upon them. Of a sudden there seemed to be chickens everywhere. They scampered down the rails, crouched to the pilot, roosted on the steam chests, lined up on the coal of the tender, while three fat hens clucked and skirmished under the very feet of the fireman, who was hopping about to evade the bewildering inrush.

“I declare!” he ejaculated breathlessly.

Far as Ralph could see ahead, stray fowls were in evidence. Feathers were flying, and a tremendous clatter and bustle was going on. They came limping, flying, rolling along the roadbed from the direction of a train standing stationary on the out track. In its center there was a gap. Thirty feet down the embankment, split in two, and a mere pile of kindling wood now, were two cars.

The trucks of one of these and some minor wreckage littered the in track. Freight hands were clearing it away, and it was this temporary obstruction that had been the cause of the warning torpedo.

A brakeman from the freight came to the passenger train to report what was doing.

“Palace chicken car and a gondola loaded with boxes in the ditch beyond,” he said. “We’ll be cleaned up for you in a few minutes.”

“That’s how the chickens come to be in evidence so numerously, it seems,” remarked Ralph.

“Say, see them among the wrecked wire netting, and putting for the timber!” exclaimed Fogg. “Fairbanks, there’s enough poultry running loose to stock an eating house for a year. I say, they’re nobody’s property now. Suppose-here’s two fat ones. I reckon I’ll take that much of the spoil while it’s going.”

With a vast chuckle the fireman grabbed two of the fowls under his feet and dumped them into his waste box, shutting down the cover. The conductor of the freight came up penciling a brief report. He handed it to the conductor of the Overland.

“We’ll wire from Luce,” he explained, “but we may be delayed reaching there and you may get this to headquarters at the Junction first. Tell the claim agent there won’t be salvage enough to fill a waybill. She’s clear,” with a glance down the track.

The Overland proceeded slowly past the wreck, affording the crew and the curious passengers a view of the demolished freight lying at the bottom of the embankment. Once past this, Ralph set full steam to make up for lost time.

It put Fogg in better humor to arrive on schedule. The thought of home comforts close by and the captured chickens occupied his mind and dissipated his superstitious forebodings.

When they reached the roundhouse the fireman started straight for home. Ralph lingered a few minutes to chat with the foreman, and was about to leave when Fry, the claim agent of the road, came into the doghouse in great haste.

“Just the man I want to see, Fairbanks,” he said animatedly.

“That so?” smiled Ralph.

“Yes. Your conductor just notified me of the smashup beyond the limits. It looks clean cut enough, with the tracks cleared, but he says some of the stuff is perishable.”

“If you list chickens in that class,” responded Ralph, “I guess that’s right.”

“That’s the bother of it,” observed Fry. “Dead salvage could wait, and the wrecking crew could take care of it at their leisure, but-live stock!”

“It looked to me as if most of the chickens had got away,” exclaimed Ralph. “The car was split and twisted from end to end.”

“I reckon I had better get on the job instanter,” said the claim agent. “How about getting down to the bluff switch, Forgan?”

“Nothing moving but the regulars,” reported the roundhouse foreman. “You don’t need a special?”

“No, any dinky old machine will do.”

“Gravel pit dummy just came in.”

“Can’t you rig her up and give me clear tracks for an hour, till I make investigations?”

“Crew gone home.”

“No extras on hand?”

The foreman consulted his schedule and shook his head negatively.

Ralph thought of his home and mother, but a certain appealing glance from the claim agent and a natural disposition to be useful and accommodating influenced him to a kindly impulse.

“See here, Mr. Fry, I’ll be glad to help you out, if I can,” he said.

“You certainly can, Fairbanks, and I won’t forget the favor,” declared the claim agent warmly. “You see, I’m booked for a week’s vacation and a visit to my old invalid father down at Danley, beginning tomorrow. If I can untie all the red tape from this wreck affair, I’m free to get out, and my substitute can take up any fresh tangles that come up tomorrow.”

“Can you fire?” inquired Ralph.

“I can make a try at it.”