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

CHAPTER XXVI-A ROVING COMMISSION

It was difficult for Ralph to sleep after the departure of Big Denny. He was still under the disturbing influence of the exciting events of the afternoon and evening. His mother had not been disturbed by the watchman's visit. Ralph finally strolled out into the garden, and sat down in the little summer house to rest and think.

He did not exactly feel as though he were at the height of his ambition, but Ralph did feel exceedingly thankful and encouraged. He valued most the friends he had gained personally, from the lowly walks of life it was true, but who had been bettered and elevated by the contact.

The pre-eminent thought now in Ralph's mind was concerning Gasper Farrington. Had things gone on smoothly, and had the magnate left him alone, Ralph might have been inclined to accept the situation. His mother did not care to rouse a sleeping enemy, and he would have respected her decision. But now that Farrington had so palpably shown his intentions, had declared war to the knife, bitter and vindictive, all the fighting instincts in Ralph's nature arose to the crisis.

"I shall not take Mr. Matthewson's ten dollars a week unless I find the stolen plunder and really earn the money," Ralph reflected. "It is hardly probable I shall succeed along that line, after his expert assistants have failed. But in trying to locate Van's friends I shall probably be in the neighborhood of Dover, and I may stumble across some clew to Ike Slump's whereabouts."

Ralph went inside the house after an hour and brought out a railroad map. He studied the route of the Great Northern and the location of Dover, and went to bed full of the plan of his projected journey.

He showed his mother the check for the twenty dollars and his pass over the road the next morning, and explained his projects fully. They met with the widow's approbation.

"Not that I want to get rid of Van," she said feelingly. "He has grown very dear to me, Ralph. Poor fellow! Perhaps it is his affliction that appeals to me, but I should be very lonely with him away."

"I do not think he has many friends who care for him," theorized Ralph, "or there would have been some search, or inquiry through the newspapers."

After breakfast Ralph went to the depot. He found his young pensioner, Teddy, in high feather over success in getting two hours' regular employment a day delivering bundles for a drygoods store. Ralph gave him some encouraging advice, and went to see the young doctor who had attended Van.

He explained his intended experiment clearly, and asked the physician's opinion as to its practicability.

"Try it by all means," advised the doctor heartily. "It can do no harm, and the sight of some familiar place may be the first step towards clearing the lad's clouded mind. A great shock robbed him of reason; a like event, such as strong, sudden confrontation by some person or place he has known for years, may restore memory instantly."

Ralph was encouraged. When he went home he sat down with Van and tried to fix his attention.

It was very difficult. His strange guest would listen and look pleased at his attention, but his eyes would wander irresistibly after some fluttering butterfly, or with a gleam of satisfaction over to the wood pile his careful manipulation had made as neat and symmetrical as a storekeeper's show case.

Ralph pronounced in turn the name of every station on the main line of the Great Northern, but Van betokened no recognition of any of them.

Ralph waited in the neighborhood of Griscom's house after the 10.15 express came in, and intercepted the engineer on his way homeward.

He showed his pass and explained his project. He wanted Griscom to allow himself and Van to ride on the tender to the end of his run and back.

"That's all right, Fairbanks," said the engineer, "pass or no pass. Be on hand at the water tank yonder as we pull out the afternoon train. I'll slow up and take you on."

Ralph tried to express to Van that afternoon that they were going on a journey. Van only looked fixedly at him, but when Mrs. Fairbanks handed him a parcel of lunch, he proudly stowed it under one arm, and when she put on him a clean collar and necktie, he showed more than normal animation, as though he caught a dim inkling that something out of the usual was on the programme.

Van went placidly with Ralph. The afternoon train came along a few minutes after they had reached the water tank.

"Now then," said Ralph, as Griscom slowed up, "be lively, Van!"

His words may have conveyed no particular meaning to his companion, but the approaching train, the picturesque track environment and Ralph's energetic motions roused up Van, whose face betokened an eagerness out of the common as he commented:

"Engine."

"Yes, Van."

"Ride."

Ralph bundled him up into the cab, clambered back into the tender, and made a comfortable seat for Van on top of the coal.

On that perch the lad seemed a happy monarch of all he surveyed. Ralph realized that the variety and excitement had a stimulating influence on his mind, and that even if nothing materialized in the way of discoveries from the trip, the general effect on Van would be at least beneficial.

Griscom tossed a cheery word to his young passengers ever and anon. His fireman, a new hand, was kept busy at the shovel, and had no time to inspect or chum with the boys.

They passed station after station. Ralph kept a close watch on Van's face. It was as expressionless as ever. His eyes roamed everywhere, and he was evidently at the pinnacle of complacent enjoyment.

Outside of that, however, Van gave no indication that he saw anything in the landscape or the depot crowds they passed that touched a responsive chord of recognition in his nature.

Forty miles down the road was Wilmer. It was quite a town. Southwest forty miles lay Dover, and west was the wild, wooded stretch known as "The Barrens." This was no misnomer. There were said to be less than twenty habitations in the desolate eighty miles of territory.

The Great Northern had originally surveyed ten miles into this section with the intention of crossing it, as by that route it could strike a favorable terminal point at a great economy of distance. The difficulties of clearing and grading were found so unsurmountable for an infant road, however, that the project had been finally abandoned.

They passed Wilmer. Signals called for "slow" ahead, as a freight was running for a siding. They had barely reached the limits of the town when Griscom put on a little more speed.

"Whoop!" yelled Van suddenly.

Ralph had shifted his seat on account of some undermining of the coal supply, and at just that moment for the first time was away from the side of his fellow passenger.

Before he could clamber over the coal heap Van had arisen to his feet.

"Stop, Van!" shouted Ralph.

But Van's eyes were fixed on the little winding country road lining the railway fence at the bottom of the embankment.

An antiquated gig, well loaded and attached to a sorry looking nag, and driven by a man well muffled up in a dilapidated linen duster, was plodding along the dusty thoroughfare.

Upon this outfit Van's eyes appeared to be set. His hand waved nervously, and he seemed to forget where he was, and was not conscious of what he was doing.

He was in the act of stepping off into nothingness, and in a quiver of dread Ralph yelled to the engineer:

"Mr. Griscom, stop! stop!"

But the engineer's hearing was occupied with the hiss of steam directly around him, and his attention riveted on signals ahead.

Ralph made a spring. Some lumps of coal slipped under his hasty footing. His hand just grazed a disappearing foot.

The train was going about fifteen miles an hour, and Van had recklessly taken a header down the embankment.

CHAPTER XXVII-RECALLED TO LIFE

Van landed half-way down the incline. His feet sank deep into the sandy soil, the shock threw him forward with dangerous velocity, and he went head over heels, slid ten feet like a rocket, and reached the bottom of the embankment.

His head landed squarely against the lower board of the fence. Rip! crack! splinter! The contact burst the board into kindling wood. Van drove through and about five feet beyond, and lay still and inert in the bed of the dusty country road.

Ralph believed he was killed. With a groan he leaped to the side of Griscom and grabbed his arm. The engineer's lightning eye followed his speechless indication of Van, and he pulled the machinery to a speedy halt that jarred every bolt and pinion.

Ralph was trembling with dread and emotion. He ran back along the track fifty feet, and breathlessly rushed down the incline at the point where Van had descended.

As he gained the bottom of the embankment his heart gave a great jump of joy. He saw Van move, struggle to a sitting posture, rub his head bewilderedly with one hand, and stare about him as if collecting his scattered senses.

"Are you hurt?" involuntarily exclaimed Ralph.

"Not much- Hello! Who are you?"

Ralph experienced the queerest feeling of his life. He could not analyze it just then. There was an indescribable change in Van that somehow thrilled him. For the first time since Ralph had found him in the old factory he spoke words connectedly and coherently.

A great wave of gladness surged over Ralph's soul. He was a quick thinker. The presentation of the moment was clear. The young doctor at Stanley Junction had said that just as a shock had deprived Van of reason, so a second shock might restore it. Well, the second shock had come, it seemed, and there was Van, a new look in his eyes, a new expression on his face. Ralph remembered to have read of just such extraordinary happenings as the present. He had but one glad, glorious thought-Van had been recalled to life and reason, and that meant everything!

Toot! toot! Ralph glanced at the locomotive where Griscom was impatiently waving his hand. The Great Northern could not check its schedule to suit the convenience of two dead-head passengers.

"Quick, Van," said Ralph, seizing the arm of his companion-"hurry, we shall be left."

"Left-how? where?" inquired Van, resisting, and with a vague stare.

"To the locomotive. We must get back, you know. They won't wait."

"What have I got to do with the locomotive?"

"You just jumped from it."

"Who did?"

"You."

"You're dreaming!" pronounced Van.

"What you giving me-or I've been dreaming," he muttered, passing his hand over his forehead again.

Ralph suddenly realized that Van regarded him as an entire stranger, that time and explanation alone could restore a friendly, comprehensive basis.

He gave Griscom the go ahead signal. The engineer looked puzzled, but there was no time to waste, for the tracks were now signaled clear ahead. He put on steam and the train moved on its way, leaving Ralph and Van behind.

The boy paid no further attention to locomotive or Ralph. He struggled to his feet, and looked up the country road, then down it. The gig had disappeared, but a cloud of dust lingered in the air over where it had just turned a bend.

Van started forward in this direction. There was a pained, confused expression on his face, as if he could not quite get the right of things. Ralph came up to him and detained his steps by placing a hand on his arm.

The way Van shook off his grasp showed that he had lost none of his natural strength.

"What you want?" he asked suspiciously.

"Don't you know me?"

"Me? you? No."

"Hold on," persisted Ralph, "don't go yet. You are Van."

"That's my name, yes."

"And I am Ralph-don't you remember?"

"I don't."

"Ralph Fairbanks."

Van gave a start. He squarely faced his companion now. His blinking eyes told that the machinery of his brain was actively at work.

"Fairbanks-Fairbanks?" he repeated. "Aha! yes-letter!"

His hand shot into an inside coat pocket. He withdrew it disappointedly. Then his glance chancing to observe for the first time, it seemed, the suit he wore, apparel that belonged to Ralph, he stood in a painful maze, unable to figure out how he had come by it and what it meant.

"You are looking for a letter," guessed Ralph.

"Yes, I was-'John Fairbanks, Stanley Junction.' How do you know?" with a stare.

"Because I am Ralph Fairbanks, his son. When you first showed it to me-"

"Showed it to you?"

"Yes."

"Where?

"At Stanley Junction."

"I never was there."

"I think you were."

"When?"

"About three weeks ago. And you just left there this morning. You was with me on that locomotive that just went ahead, jumped off, and-you had better sit down and let me explain things."

Van looked distressed. He was in repossession of all his faculties, there was no doubt of that, but there was a blank in his life he could never fill out of his own volition. He studied Ralph keenly for a minute or two, sighed desperately, sat down on a bowlder by the side of the road, and said:

"Something's wrong, I can guess that. I had a letter to deliver, and it seems as if it was only a minute ago that I had it with me. Now it's gone, I find myself here without knowing how I came here, with you who are a stranger telling me strange things, and-I give it up. It's a riddle. What's the answer?"

Ralph had a task before him. In his judgment it was best not to crowd things too speedily, all of a jumble.

"You came to Stanley Junction with a letter about three weeks ago," he said. "It seemed you had dead-headed it there on the trucks from some point down the line."

Van nodded as if he dimly recalled all this.

"You hid in an old factory, or went there to take a nap. A baseball struck your head accidentally. We took you to our home, you have been there since."

"That's queer, I can't remember. Yes-yes, I do, in a way," Van corrected himself sharply. "Was there a chicken house there-oh, such a fine chicken house!" he exclaimed expansively, "with fancy towers made out of laths, and a dandy wind vane on it?"

"You built that chicken house yourself," explained Ralph.

"Oh, go on!" said Van incredulously.

"Well, you did."

"And there was a lady there, dressed in black," muttered Van, his glance strained dreamily. "She was good to me. She used to sing sweet songs-just like a mother would. I never had a mother, to remember."

Van's eyes began to fill with tears. Ralph was touched at the recognition of his mother's gentleness. Emotion had lightened the shadows in Van's mind more powerfully than suggestion or memory.

Ralph felt that he had better rouse his companion from a retrospective mood.

"You're all right now," he said briskly.

"And I was knocked silly?" observed Van "I see how it was. I've been like a man in a long sleep. How did I come out of it, though?"

"Just as you went into it-with a shock. I took you for a trip on a locomotive. Just as we got near here you made a sudden jump, rolled down the embankment, your head burst through that fence board yonder, and I thought you were killed."

Van felt over his head. He winced at a sensitive touch at one spot, but said, with a light laugh:

"I've got a cast-iron skull, I guess! But what made me jump from the locomotive? Did I have daffy fits?"

"Oh, not at all."

"Well, then?"

"Why," said Ralph, "I think the sight of a man in a long linen duster, driving a one-horse gig down this road startled you or attracted your attention, or something of that sort."

"Ginger!" interrupted Van, jumping to his feet, "I remember now! It was-him! And I've got to see him. He went that way. I'm off."

"Hold on! hold on!" called the dismayed Ralph.

But Van heard not, or heeded not. He sprinted for the bend in the road, Ralph hotly at his heels.

CHAPTER XXVIII-MYSTERY

Ralph outran his competitor, then kept easy pace with him, and did not try to stop him. He recognized a certain obstinacy and impetuousness in Van that he felt he must deal with in a politic manner.

He noticed, too, that Van was not in normal physical trim. The roll down the embankment had wrenched one foot slightly, and when they came to the bend to discover no gig in sight, and a series of other bends ahead, Van halted, breathless and tired.

"Give it up!" he panted, sinking to a dead tree. "Oh, well! I can catch him up later. Twenty-miles tramp, though."

"You seem to know who the man in the linen duster is?" ventured Ralph.

"Oh, yes."

"Is it important that you should see him?"

"Well, I guess so!"

Van was close-mouthed after that. He lay back somewhat wearily on the log and closed his eyes. The reaction from his tumble was succeeding the false energy excitement had briefly given him.

"See here," said Ralph, "I suggest that you take a little snooze. It may do you a heap of good."

"Wish that lady was here to sing one of her sweet songs!" murmured Van. "I just feel collapsed."

"If you will stay here quietly for a few minutes," suggested Ralph, "I will go to that house over yonder and get some water and a bite to eat. That will make you feel better. We had a lunch, but it was left behind on the locomotive."

"All right," said Van sleepily.

He seemed instantly to sink into slumber. Ralph waited a few moments, then he went over to a house on the outskirts of the town, all the time keeping an eye directed towards the spot where he had left his companion.

A woman stood in its open doorway. She had witnessed the jump from the locomotive, and referred to it at once.

"Where's the boy who was with you?" she inquired.

Ralph pointed to the spot where he had left Van.

"Was he hurt much?"

"I think not at all seriously. He's played out, though, and I have advised him to sleep a little."

"That's right," nodded the woman. "Natur's the panoseeds for all sich. That-and hot drops. You just take him a little phial of our vegetable hot drops. They'll fix him up like magic."

"Why, thank you, madam, I will, if you can spare them," said Ralph. "I was also going to ask you to put me up a bite of something to eat and let me have a bottle of water."

"Surely I will," and the good-hearted woman, pleased with Ralph's engaging politeness, bustled off and soon returned with a paper parcel, a two-quart bottle of water and a little phial filled with a dark liquid.

Ralph insisted on leaving her twenty-five cents, and went back to his friend with a parting admonition "to be sure and give him the hot drops soon as he woke up."

Van was sleeping profoundly, and Ralph did not disturb him. He sat watching the slumberer steadily. Van seemed to have placid, pleasant dreams, for he often smiled in his sleep, and once murmured the refrain of one of Mrs. Fairbanks' favorite songs.

An hour later Van turned over and sat up quickly. Ralph had been somewhat anxious, for he did not know what phase his companion's condition might assume at this new stage in the case. Van came upright, however, and dispelled vague fears-clear-eyed, smiling, bright as a dollar.

"Hello!" he hailed-"locomotive, friend, embankment. You're Fairbanks?"

"That's right," said Ralph-"you remember me, do you?"

"Sure, I do. What's in the bundle? Grub? and the bottle? Water? Give me a swig-I'm burned up with thirst."

"This first," said Ralph, producing the phial, and explaining its predicted potency. "Half of it-now some water, if you like."

Van choked and spluttered over the hot decoction. Ralph was immensely gratified as he followed it up by eating a good meal of the home-made pie, biscuits and cheese with which the kindhearted woman at the nearest house had provided them.

Van's affliction had lifted like a cloud blown entirely away by a brisk, invigorating breeze.

"Rested and fed," he declared, with a sigh of luxurious contentment and satisfaction. "So I was crazy, eh?" he bluntly propounded.

"Certainly not."

"Idiotic, then?"

"Hardly," dissented Ralph. "My mother has grown to think almost as much of you as she does of me-"

"Bless her dear heart!"

"You've made our home lot look like the grounds of some summer villa," went on Ralph. "That don't look as though there was much the matter with you, does it?"

"But there was. It's all over now, though. My head is clear as a bell. I remember nearly everything. Now I want you to tell me the rest."

Ralph decided it was the time to do so. They would certainly be at cross-purposes on many perplexing points, until his companion had gained a clear comprehension of the entire situation.

There was never a more attentive listener. Van's eyes fairly devoured the narrator, and when the graphic recital was concluded, his wonderment, suspense, surprise and anxiety all gave way to one great manifestation of gratitude and delight, as he warmly grasped Ralph's hand.

"I never read, heard or dreamed of such treatment!" declared the warm-hearted boy. "You cared for me like a prince!"

"Seeing that I had so effectually put you out of business," suggested Ralph, "I fancy I had some responsibility in the case."

"I want to see your mother again," said Van, in a soft, quivering voice. "I want to tell her that she's woke up something good and happy and holy in me. I was a poor, friendless, homeless waif, and she kept me in a kind of paradise."

"Well, you have woke up to more practical realities of life," suggested Ralph, "and now what are you going to do next?"

But Van could not get away from the theme uppermost in his mind.

"And you are John Fairbanks' son?" he continued musingly. "And I landed against you first crack out of the box! That was queer, wasn't it? Some people would call it fate, wouldn't they? It's luck, anyhow-for you sure, for me maybe. The letter didn't tell you anything, though. Now what should I do? Say, Fairbanks, let me think a little, will you?"

Ralph nodded a ready acquiescence, and Van sat evidently going over the situation in his mind. As he looked up in an undecided way, Ralph said:

"I don't see any great occasion for secrecy or reflection. You were sent to deliver a letter?"

"Yes, that's so."

"To my father. My father is dead. We open the letter, as we have a right to do. It satisfies us that the writer knows considerable that might vitally affect our interests. Very well, it seems to me that your duty is to take me, the representative of John Fairbanks, straight to the person who wrote that letter."