Ralph of the Roundhouse: or, Bound to Become a Railroad Man

"If I can make it,"

"You're the kind that wins," acknowledged Ike. "Got any coin, now?"

"Suppose I have?"

Ike's weazel-like eyes glowed.

"Suppose you have? Then I can steer you up against a real investment of the A1 class."

Ralph looked quizzically incredulous.

"I can," persisted Ike Slump. "You want to get in here to work, don't you? Well, you can't make it."

"Why can't I?"

"Without my help-I can give you that help. You give me a dollar, and I'll give you a tip."

"What kind of a tip?"

"About a vacancy."

"Is there going to be one?"

"There is, I can tell you when, and I can give you first chance on the game, and deliver the goods."

Ralph was interested.

"If you are telling the truth," he said finally, "I'd risk half a dollar."

Ralph took out the coin. A sight of it settled the matter for Ike.

He reached for it eagerly.

"All right, I'm the vacancy. You watch around, for soon as I get my pay to-morrow I'm going to bolt. It's confidential, though, Fairbanks-you'll remember that?"

"Oh, sure."

Ike Slump was a notorious liar, but Ralph believed him in the present instance. Anyhow, he felt he was making progress. He planned to be on hand the next day, prepared for the expected vacancy, and incidentally wondered what had made Ike Slump's dinner pail so tremendously heavy, and, also, as to the identity of the trampish individual who had disappeared with it so abruptly.

He wandered about half a mile down the tracks where they widened out from the main line into the freight yards, and selected a pile of ties remote from any present activity in the neighborhood to have a quiet think.

He determined to see the foreman, Tim Forgan, the first thing in the morning, and discover what the outlook was in general. If absolutely turned down, he would await the announced resignation of Mr. Ike Slump.

Ralph understood that a green engine wiper in the roundhouse was paid six dollars a week to commence on if a boy, nine dollars if a man. He picked up a torn freight ticket drifting by in the breeze, and fell to figuring industriously, and the result was pleasant and reassuring.

Ralph looked up, as with prodigious whistlings a single locomotive came tearing down the rails, took the outer main track, and was lost to sight.

Not two minutes later a second described the same maneuver. Ralph arose, wondering somewhat.

Looking down the rails towards the depot, he noticed unusual activity in the vicinity of the roundhouse.

A good many hands were gathered at the turntable, as if some excitement was up. Then a third engine came down the rails rapidly, and Ralph noticed that the main "out" signal was turned to "clear tracks."

As the third locomotive passed him, he noticed that the engineer strained his sight ahead in a tensioned way, and the fireman piled in the coal for the fullest pressure head of steam.

Ralph made a start for home, reached a crossroad, and was turning down it when a new shrill series of whistles directed his attention to locomotive No. 4. It came down the rails in the same remarkable and reckless manner as its recent predecessors.

"Something's up!" decided Ralph, with an uncontrollable thrill of interest and excitement-"I wonder what?"

CHAPTER V-OPPORTUNITY

The boy turned and ran back to the culvert crossing just as the fourth locomotive whizzed past the spot.

He waved his hand and yelled out an inquiry as to what was up, but cab and tender flashed by in a sheet of steam and smoke.

He recognized the engineer, however. It was gruff old John Griscom, and in the momentary glimpse Ralph had of his hard, rugged face he looked grimmer than ever.

Ralph marveled at his presence here, for Griscom had the crack run of the road, the 10.15, driven by the biggest twelve-wheeler on the line, and was something of an industrial aristocrat. The locomotive he now propelled was a third-class freight engine, and had no fireman on the present occasion so far as could be seen.

Ralph knew enough about runs, specials and extras, to at once comprehend that something very unusual had happened, or was happening.

Whatever it was, extreme urgency had driven out this last locomotive, for Griscom wore his off-duty suit, and it was plain to be seen had not had time to change it.

Ralph's eyes blankly followed the locomotive. Then he started after it. Five hundred feet down the rails, a detour of a gravel pit sent the tracks rounding to a stretch, below which, in a clump of greenery, half a dozen of the firemen and engineers of the road had their homes.

With a jangle and a shiver the old heap of junk known as 99 came to a stop. Then its whistle began a series of tootings so shrill and piercing that the effect was fairly ear-splitting.

Ralph recognized that they were telegraphic in their import. Very often, he knew, locomotives would sound a note or two, slow up just here to take hands down to the roundhouse, but old Griscom seemed not only calling some one, but calling fiercely and urgently, and adding a whole volume of alarm warnings.

Ralph kept on down the track and doubled his pace, determined now to overtake the locomotive and learn the cause of all this rush and commotion.

As he neared 99, he discerned that the veteran engineer was hustling tremendously. Usually impassive and exact when in charge of the superb 10.15, he was now a picture of almost irritable activity.

Having thrown off his coat, he fired in some coal, impatiently gave the whistle a further exercise, and leaning from the cab window yelled lustily towards the group of houses beyond the embankment.

Just as Ralph reached the end of the tender, he saw emerging from the shaded path down the embankment a girl of twelve. He recognized her as the daughter of jolly Sam Cooper, the fireman.

She was breathless and pale, and she waved her hand up to the impatient engineer with an agitated:

"Was you calling pa, Mr. Griscom?"

"Was I calling him!" growled the gruff old bear-"did he think I was piping for the birds?"

"Oh, Mr. Griscom, he can't come, he-"

"He's got to come! It's life and death! Couldn't he tell it, when he saw me on this crazy old wreck, and shoving up the gauge to bursting point. Don't wait a second-he's got to come!"

"Oh, Mr. Griscom, he's in bed, crippled. Ran into a scythe in the garden, and his ankle is cut terrible. Mother's worried to death, and he won't be able to take the regular run for days and days."