Ralph on the Engine: or, The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail

“That’s all right, lad. Just call on me if I can help you. Hello, you, Woods!” bawled the engineer suddenly to a fellow who appeared near the cab side, “what you doing there?”

The man slunk out of view at being addressed, with a muttered remark that it was his own business.

“Don’t like that fellow – caboose look-out,” explained Barton.

“I hope he did not overhear our conversation,” spoke Ralph.

About mid-way of the train there was a gondola oil car. It had an elevated runway so that train hands could pass over it readily. Ralph selected this car as a vantage point, and got aboard as the train started on its way for Stanley Junction.

He was dressed as a tramp, looked the character completely, and the false moustache he wore effectually changed his face so that no persons except familiar friends would easily recognize him.

Ralph got down at one side of the big oil tank. For the next hour he remained quiet. Finally, as a brakeman passed over the platform, he climbed up and kept track of his movements.

The man, however, simply passed up and down the train and then returned to the caboose. Then there was a stop. Ralph leaned from the car and looked up and down the train.

“Why,” exclaimed Ralph suddenly, “there is that fellow Woods working at the doors of the cars a little ahead there.”

The brakeman in question now came down the length of the train. The engine was taking water. He halted almost opposite the car Ralph was hiding on. Suddenly he uttered a low, sharp whistle, and it was answered. Three men appeared from the side of the track, spoke to him, bounded up on to the oil car, and crouched down so near to Ralph that he could almost touch them.

Woods stood on the next track with his lantern as if waiting for the train to start up.

“Cars marked,” he spoke. “I’ll flash the glim when the coast is clear. You’ll know the cases I told you about.”

There was no response. The locomotive whistled, and the brakeman ran back to the caboose. Ralph lay perfectly still. The three men sat up against the railing of the car.

“Got the keys to the car ventilators?” asked one of the men, finally.

“Sure,” was the response. “Say, fellows, we want to be wary. This is a clever game of ours, but I hear that the railroad company is watching out pretty close.”

“Oh, they can’t reach us,” declared another voice, “with Woods taking care of the broken seals, and all kinds of duplicate keys, we can puzzle them right along.”

Just then one of them arose to his feet. He stumbled heavily over Ralph.

“Hello!” he yelled, “who is this?”

CHAPTER XXIX

A PRISONER

The three men almost instantly confronted Ralph, and one of them seized him, holding him firmly.

Ralph quickly decided on his course of action. He yawned in the face of the speaker and drawled sleepily:

“What are you waking a fellow up for?”

One held Ralph, another lit a match. They were rough, but shrewd fellows. Instantly one of them said:

“Disguised!” and he pulled off Ralph’s false moustache. “That means a spy. Fellows, how can we tell Woods?”

“S – sh!” warned a companion – “no names. Now, young fellow, who are you?”

But “young fellow” was gone! In a flash Ralph comprehended that he was in a bad fix, his usefulness on the scene gone. In a twinkling he had jerked free from the grasp of the man who held him, had sprung to the platform of the oil car and thence to the roof of the next box car.

Almost immediately his recent captor was after him. It was now for Ralph a race to the engine and his friend Barton.

The running boards were covered with sleet and as slippery as glass, yet Ralph forged ahead. He could hear the short gasps for breath of a determined pursuer directly behind him.

“Got you!” said a quick voice. Its owner stumbled, his head struck the young fireman and Ralph was driven from the running board.

He was going at such a momentum that in no way could he check himself, but slid diagonally across the roof of the car. There destruction seemed to face him.

His pursuer had fallen flat on the running board. Ralph dropped flat also, clutching vainly at space. His fingers tore along the thin sheeting of ice. He reached the edge of the car roof.

For one moment the young fireman clung there. Then quick as a flash he slipped one hand down. It was to hook his fingers into the top slide bar of the car’s side door. The action drew back the door about an inch. It was unlocked. Ralph dropped his other hold lightning-quick, thrust his hand into the interstice, pushed the door still further back, and precipitated himself forward across the floor of an empty box car.

There he lay, done up, almost terrified at the crowding perils of the instant, marveling at his wonderful escape from death.

“They must think I went clear to the ground,” theorized Ralph. “I am safe for the present, at least. What an adventure! And Woods is in league with the freight thieves! That solves the problem for the railroad company.

“An empty car,” he said, as he finally struggled to his feet. “I’ll wait till the train stops again and then run ahead to Barton. Hello!” he exclaimed sharply, as moving about the car, his foot came in contact with some object.

Ralph stood perfectly still. He could hear deep, regular breathing, as of some one asleep. His curiosity impelled him to investigate farther. He took a match from his pocket, flared it, and peered down.

Directly in one corner of the car lay a big, powerful man. He was dressed in rags. His coat was open, and under it showed a striped shirt.

“Why!” exclaimed Ralph, “a convict – an escaped convict!”

The man grasped in one hand, as if on guard with a weapon of defense, a pair of handcuffs connected with a long, heavy steel chain. Apparently he had in some way freed himself from these.

Ralph flared a second match to make a still closer inspection of the man. This aroused the sleeper. He moved, opened his eyes suddenly, saw Ralph, and with a frightful yell sprang up.

“I’ve got you!” he said, seizing Ralph. “After me, are you? Hold still, or I’ll throttle you. How near are the people who sent you on my trail?”

“I won’t risk that,” shouted the man wildly.

In a twinkling he had slipped the handcuffs over Ralph’s wrists. The latter was a prisoner so strangely that he was more curious than alarmed.

“Going to stop, are they?” pursued the man, as there was some whistling ahead. “Mind you, now, get off when I do. Don’t try to call, and don’t try to run away, or I’ll kill you.”

The train stopped and Ralph’s companion pulled back the door. He got out, forcing Ralph with him, and proceeded directly into the timber lining the railroad, never pausing till he had reached a desolate spot near a shallow creek.

Then the man ordered a halt. He sat down on the ground and forced his captive to follow his example.

“Who are you?” he demanded roughly.

“I am Ralph Fairbanks, a fireman on the Great Northern Railroad,” promptly explained the young fireman.

“Do you know me?”