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

“Then I’ll see to the rest,” promised the young engineer briskly.

With the aid of wiper Ralph soon got the dummy ready for action. It was a long time since the young engineer had done roundhouse duty. He did it well now, and thanked the strict training of his early apprentice experience. The jerky spiteful little engine rolled over the turntable in a few minutes time, and the claim agent pulled off his coat and looked to Ralph for orders.

They took a switch and headed down the clear out track. At a crossing a man came tearing towards them, arms waving, long beard flying, and his face showing the greatest urgency and excitement.

“Mishter Fry! Mishter Fry!” he panted out, “I haf just heard-”

“Nothing for you, Cohen,” shouted the claim agent.

“I hear dere vas some boxes. Sthop! sthop! I’ve got the retty gash.”

“Ready-Cash Cohen,” exclaimed Fry to Ralph. “Always on hand when there’s any cheap wreck salvage lying around loose. That fellow seems to scent a wreck like a vulture.”

“I’ve heard of him,” remarked Ralph with a smile.

They had free swing on the out track until they neared the scene of the wreck. Here they took a siding and left the dummy, to walk to the spot where the two freight cars had gone over the embankment.

“Hello!” suddenly ejaculated the claim agent with tremendous surprise and emphasis.

“Excuse me, Mishter Fry, but that salvage-”

Ralph burst out into a hearty peal of laughter. Clinging to the little bobtail tender of the dummy was Ready-Cash Cohen.

“Well, you’re a good one, Cohen.”

“If I vas’nt, vould I be Chonny-on-de-spot, Mishter Fry?” chuckled Cohen cunningly.

He followed them as they walked down the tracks. When they reached the point where the two freights had gone over the embankment, Fry clambered down its slant and for some time poked about the tangled mass of wreckage below.

“Vill dere haf to be an appraisal, my tear friend?” anxiously inquired Cohen, pressing forward as the claim agent reappeared.

“No,” responded Fry shortly. “There’s a chicken car with live and dead mixed up in the tangle. Come, Cohen, how much for the lot?”

“Schickens?” repeated Cohen disgustedly-“not in my line, Mishter Fry. Schickens are an expense. Dey need feeding.”

“Won’t bid, eh?”

“Don’t vant dem at any price. But de boxes, Mishter Fry-vot’s in dose boxes?”

“See here,” observed Fry, “I’m not giving information to the enemy. There they are, badly shaken up but they look meaty, don’t they? If you want to bid unsight unseen, name your figure.”

“Fifty tollars.”

“Take them.”

The salvage dealer toppled down the embankment with a greedy promptness. The claim agent winked blandly after him.

“I expected it,” said Fry, as a minute later Cohen came toiling up the embankment his face a void of disappointed misery.

“Mishter Fry, Mishter Fry,” he gasped, “dey are looking glasses!”

“Found that out, did you?” grinned the freight agent.

“Dey vos smashed, dey vas proken, every last one of dem. Dey are not even junk. My tear friend, I cannot take dem.”

“A bargain’s a bargain, Cohen,” voiced Fry smoothly. “You’ve made enough out of your deals with the road to stand by your bid. If you don’t, we’re no longer your customer.”

“I von’t have dem. It was a trick,” and the man went down the track tearing at his beard.

“There’s kindling wood there for somebody free for the taking,” remarked Fry. “The chicken smashup isn’t so easy.”

“Many down there?” inquired Ralph.

“Yes, most of them are crushed, but a good many alive are shut in the wire tangle. The best I can do is to send a section man to pry them free. It’s heartless to leave them to suffer and to die.”

“A lot of them got free,” observed Ralph.

“They’re somewhere around the diggings. It wouldn’t be a bad speculation for some bright genius to round them up. Why, say, Fairbanks, you’re an ambitious kind of a fellow. I’ll offer you an investment.”

“What’s that, Mr. Fry?” inquired the young engineer.

“I’ll sell you the whole kit and caboodle in the car and out of it for twenty-five dollars.”

Ralph shook his head with a smile.

“If I had time to spare I’d jump at your offer, Mr. Fry,” he said. “As it is, what could I do with the proposition?”

“Do?” retorted the claim agent. “Hire some boys to gather in the bunch. There may be five hundred chicks in the round up.”

“Really, I couldn’t bother with it, Mr. Fry,” began Ralph, and then he turned abruptly.

Some one had pulled at his sleeve, and with a start the young engineer stared strangely at a boy about his own age.

CHAPTER III – TROUBLE BREWING

The strange boy appeared upon the scene so suddenly that Ralph decided he must have reached the roadbed from the other side of the embankment.

The young engineer faced him with a slight start. To his certain knowledge he had never seen the lad before. However, his face so strongly resembled that of some one he had met recently it puzzled Ralph. Whom did those features suggest? Ralph thought hard, but gave it up.

“Did you wish to see me?” he inquired.

The boy had a striking face. It was pale and thin, his clothes were neat but shabby. There was a sort of scared look in his eyes that appealed to Ralph, who was strongly sympathetic.

“I know you,” spoke the boy in a hesitating, embarrassed way. “You don’t know me, but I’ve had you pointed out to me.”

“That so?” and Ralph smiled.

“You are Ralph Fairbanks, the engineer of the Overland Express,” continued the lad in a hushed tone, as if the distinction awed him.