Ralph in the Switch Tower: or, Clearing the Track

CHAPTER IX-CALCUTTA TOM

Ralph walked in the direction of the switch tower.

He noticed that all the tracks seemed unusually inactive, even for the noon hour. The main rails were perfectly clear, and a good many locomotives were on the sidings.

Glancing up at the switch tower, Ralph was a good deal surprised to notice that it was entirely unoccupied.

This was startling. Ralph had never known that post of the service to be untenanted at any hour of the day or night.

Then he noticed on the out main rails near the tower a handcar. A trackman stood with his hands on the pumping bar. One foot on the car, his watch in his hand, old Jack Knight was looking impatient and excited.

"Hustle, Fairbanks!" he shouted, and Ralph came up on a sharp run. "Here," spoke Knight, extending a slip of paper to Ralph. "Get down to the depot master, double-quick. Then hustle back to the tower. I'm bound for the limits tower, to keep things straight there."

"Why, what's up, Mr. Knight?" inquired Ralph.

"Mile-a-minute special from the north, due at 1.15. You've got fifteen minutes. The out tracks are set for the 1.05 express all right. Soon as she passes, set the out main after her so the special will take the in tracks to the limits. No. 6 will wait at the limits while we shoot the special to the out again."

"A special?" repeated Ralph, in some bewilderment, "and from the north-"

"Obey orders," interrupted Knight crisply. "Nothing to move except the express till the special passes. Understand? Don't lose any time. Get that slip to the depot master, and hurry back to the tower."

"All right," spoke Ralph promptly.

He started on a run for the depot, as Knight sprang to the handcar and it was whirled down the rails.

Ralph had a right to be mystified. There was no special in place on the depot tracks. The Great Northern had its terminus at Stanley Junction.

There was a single track running north from the depot, but it was not in use. It had been built by the Great Northern to connect with a belt line fifteen miles distant, all equipped as to rails, switches, and roadbed. Then the holding companies had some squabble. Suits and counter-suits had tied up the line, and it was temporarily out of service on an injunction.

Ralph therefore comprehended that it was only over this stretch of road that any special could be expected from the north. Further, he decided that it must be a very important special that could gain the right of way under existing legal complications and interrupt the regular system of the Great Northern.

However, the order was out and Ralph had definite instructions. He made the depot in three minutes, and darted into the private office of the depot master without ceremony.

That official looked nervous and engrossed. He clicked at a telegraph instrument with one hand, while he hastily unfolded and scanned the slip of paper Ralph had brought.

"Very good," he nodded. "Clear tracks to Springfield. If they boost the special along on the other sections as well as we have done on this, and our president can score a mile-a-minute run, he can reach his dying wife in time."

Ralph hurried back towards the switch tower. He fancied he now understood the situation. The brief words of the depot master had been enlightening.

He guessed that the president of the road at a distance had been apprised of serious illness in his family. Perhaps the attendant physician had wired a time limit. If the anxious husband hoped to see his stricken wife before she died, he must exert every privilege he controlled as the head of a great railroad system.

Ralph reflected that he might have been a thousand miles away when he received the anxious summons. Influence and the wires had possibly called half a dozen interlocking lines into service. Even the law had stepped aside, it seemed, to speed the distressed official on his way, via the north spur of the Great Northern.

The 1.05 express steamed out of the depot just as Ralph reached the switch tower.

"That clears the situation," he reflected. "Set the out main for the in switch after she passes. Hark!"

Ralph bent his ear at an unusual sound. This was the echo of a sharp locomotive whistle-to the north.

"The special is coming," he observed, and naturally with some excitement-a mile-a-minute dash through the depot and town was a novelty for Stanley Junction.

There was no one visible in the immediate vicinity of the switch tower. The unusual quietude of the yards made Ralph think of Sunday. At a little distance were many engines and freight trains standing on sidings. They were held inactive on order. Engineers and firemen lounged on their cab seats, looking down the yards north expectantly.

Ralph rounded the tower structure briskly. He pulled out his watch.

"Four minutes," he spoke, and turned into the lower doorway.

In a jiffy he would be up the ladder. A turn of the lever, and he, too, could sit down, and from his lofty point of observation leisurely watch the mile-a-minute special flash by.

Half-way across the lower tower space, Ralph checked himself.

A chill, startled sensation crept over his nerves. He halted with a shock, gave a vivid stare, and uttered a sharp gasp.

A growl had warned him. Ralph saw a bristling, sinuous form arise from the floor directly at the bottom of the ladder.

Two fire-balls seemed to glow at him with venom and menace. In a flash the young leverman realized the situation.

Ralph Fairbanks faced the escaped tiger.

CHAPTER X-A MILE A MINUTE

Ralph stood dumfounded as he made out the great Indian tiger, Calcutta Tom, that "had cost six thousand dollars to cage after it had killed five men."

The encounter was so unlooked for that Ralph stood transfixed for a second or two.

The escaped animal could not have been long in the switch house, otherwise Knight or others would have discovered it. It had escaped before daybreak that morning. Since then it must have been in hiding around the depot yards.

About twenty feet away from the switch tower were some open vault-like recesses fitting into a brick abutment. This inclined from the depot baggage room. Up and down this, baggage was run on trucks. It was possible that for a time the tiger had lurked in some of these dark recesses, transferring itself to the lower tower room within the last fifteen minutes.

Calcutta Tom was a formidable-looking beast of enormous size. Ralph noticed, however, that while the animal growled and bristled fiercely, it did not crouch or threaten to spring. It posed clumsily, showed no teeth-if it had any-and seemed determined to act simply on the defensive and repel intruders.

Toot-toot-toot-too-ooo-oot!

The shrill, strange whistle in the distance cut vividly on Ralph's ear because it proceeded from that unusual locality-the north spur.

With a thrill he caught its signal warning. The limited was coming, the mile-a-minute special would be hammering the main depot rails in less than three minutes now!

Its engineer had right of way track signal from fifteen miles back. He was not expected to be looking out for obstructions. The "O.K. clear" order meant that he need not trouble his mind as to complications in unfamiliar territory. The delayed express on the out track was hidden from view by a curve. Even if discovered, the special, going at a tremendous rate of speed, could not slow up in time to avoid a collision.

All these thoughts flashed through the young leverman's mind within the space of a single second. Ralph knew that he must instantly scale the ladder and set the levers, or else all would be lost.

He made a reckless run for the iron ladder. Four feet from it, he went bounding back like a rubber ball.

Calcutta Tom had simply raised a ponderous paw. It dropped on Ralph's breast with the force of a sledge-hammer.

Ralph landed with a thud against the inside sheathing of the tower. Then he stumbled flat, but came erect, grasping a broken brake-rod his hand had chanced to touch on the floor.

Again the "Clear the way!" signal of the speeding special to the north sent the blood rushing through his veins like quicksilver.

Ralph sprang at the tiger, striking out with all his strength.

The bar was wrenched from his grasp by his formidable brute foe. He saw it twisted up like a bit of flexible licorice. The tiger made a spring. Its bristling form filled the doorway almost as quickly as Ralph had sped through it.

There the tiger stood, blinking at the light, and snarling fiercely. Ralph gave a great gasp of desperation, and looked wildly all about him for escape from his dilemma.

No one on the sidings was near enough to signal to any advantage. By the time he could summon help and explain matters, the special would be on hand and the damage done.

A cold sweat came out all over his body. Ralph began to quake. It meant sure death to oppose the stubborn brute in the open doorway.

"What shall I do-oh, what can I do?" panted Ralph in a torment of agony.

He ran out a few steps and looked up at the tower room. This loomed twenty feet aloft, flanging out mushroom-fashion over the lower story, which presented a solid base.

The tower room was inaccessible, even if he could scale the lower building. Ralph ran a complete circuit of the structure. Then his eye flashed with sudden hope.

As nimbly as though his tiger foe was directly at his heels, Ralph sprang at and clasped a telegraph pole. Its surface was roughened and indented by the hooks of linemen, allowing him to get a lifting grip.

Ralph drew himself up slowly. The ascent to his overwrought mind seemed to consume an age. It was just forty-five seconds, however, when twenty-five feet from the ground, his slivered and bleeding hands grasped the first cross-bar of the telegraph pole and he lifted himself to it.

A foot or two down and six feet away was the glass-windowed side of the tower room. Ralph pulled himself erect till both feet rested on the narrow cross-bar.

He steadied himself on his dizzy perch. He seemed to have ceased to breathe, and his heart stood still, so intense was the strain on his nerves. The wreck and ruin of a great railroad system to his exaggerated senses seemed to impend on his success in a daring dive.

For a dive it was, and a desperate one. All the upper sashes fronting him were lowered, as was the usage in clear weather. Ralph caught the shrieking blast of the special. His expert ear told him that it was less than a mile distant. He poised, wavered, and then made a forward spring.

There was a great clatter of glass. Ralph half hung over the top of the lower and the lowered sashes, but his feet had kicked in the double panes. He fairly fell over the sashes into the tower room.

On his feet in a flash, the youth darted a swift glance at the tower clock. It was just 1.15.

"Made it!" he cried, but in a faint, hoarse tone-"made it, but just in time!"

He was so overcome that it was his sheer weight rather than any exertion of muscle that pulled bar 4 over into place. Then Ralph staggered back, and fairly fell into the armchair.

The ordeal had been a terrible one. He understood how a man's hair turned white sometimes in an hour. His teeth were chattering, his cheeks blanched. He turned his eyes to the north, chained to the chair momentarily in a kind of a dread stupor.

A flagman across the rails was yelling up at him. He had witnessed Ralph's sensational proceedings, and was staring at the broken window panes. Ralph did not hear him.

Instead, his ears were filled with a grinding on the north rails. Tearing down them, swaying from side to side, shrieking out constantly for clear tracks, a locomotive with one car attached reached the far depot end and went its length like a flash of light.

"The special!" breathed Ralph, – "on time!"

CHAPTER XI-SPOILING FOR A FIGHT

As Ralph spoke the special was a blur as it passed the tower, a flying spot as it flashed to the in rails, a speck as it turned the curve.

Ralph sat motionless till he caught its whistle past the limits tower. Then he realized that his crucial test was past and done.

The telephone bell rang noisily. The dial indicator began to move. The delayed freights set up a piping call for service. For five minutes Ralph jumped actively from lever to lever. He was glad of the task-it diverted his mind from the harrowing ordeal that had so nearly unmanned him.

As there was a lull in the service, Ralph thought of the tiger below. He started to send a message for relief over the 'phone. Just then he noticed a familiar form smoking a pipe on a baggage truck near by.

"Hey, Stiggs!" he called from the open window.

The person addressed was a simple-faced, smiling man of about fifty. He wore a railroad jumper and overalls, but they were spotless, as if he had pretty light work. He wore, too, a regular fireman's peaked cap-in fact looked like a seasoned railroad hand, but moved as placidly towards the tower at Ralph's hail as though he was inspector-general and main owner of the railroad.

Stiggs was a character about the yards. He was one of the first switchmen employed by the Great Northern. About two years previously, however, he had got terribly battered up in trying to rescue an express driver and his horses who had got wedged in on an X-switch. Stiggs succeeded, but paid the penalty.

When he came out of the hospital he was sound of limb, but his mind was affected. He was not dangerous or troublesome, but he still imagined that he was in active service for the railroad company.

The Great Northern pensioned him, and he and his wife got along quite comfortably on the sixteen dollars a month allowed them, as they owned their little home. Stiggs, however, haunted the yards. He put on a fresh, clean working suit twice a week, and went the rounds of depot, flag-shanties, switch tower, and roundhouse twice a day regularly.

He was so pleasant and inoffensive that all hands gave him a welcome. He ran errands for men on duty, and at times unofficially spelled the crossings flagmen while they went to their meals.

His great need was tobacco. His wife would buy him none, saying they could not afford it. When the railroad men rewarded his little services with a pipeful or a package of his favorite brand, Stiggs was a very happy man.

"Want me?" he called up to Ralph as he neared the tower.

"Yes," answered Ralph. "Will you do an errand for me?"

"Sure pop. That's what the company hires me for, isn't it?" demanded Stiggs cheerfully.

"You know where the circus train is unloading?"

"Over near the street-of course. I supervised getting their band chariot down the skids. New men here-never handled chariots before. They'd have smashed her if I hadn't been on deck to direct them."

"Experience counts, Mr. Stiggs," remarked Ralph indulgently.

"You bet it does-that's what the company hires me for."

"Well, you go down and see if any of the circus people are still around."

"They were ten minutes ago."

"Find the manager. You know one of their wild animals is loose?"

"I heard so."

"Then you bargain for a reward. Tell them you can produce their escaped tiger if they pay you for your trouble."

Stiggs stared in perplexed simplicity at Ralph.

"But I can't," he demurred, "and I never tell a lie, you know."

"Yes, you can," asserted Ralph-"at least I can. I know where the animal is. You hurry the circus manager here, and I will show up the tiger."

Simple-minded Stiggs craned his neck as if expecting to see the animal in question in Ralph's company. Then his face grew mildly reproachful.

"I didn't think you would try to hoax me, Fairbanks!" he said sorrowfully.

"I wouldn't for the world, Mr. Stiggs," said Ralph. "I have too much respect for you. Do as I say now-only hurry. Make a good bargain, for a little money won't do Mrs. Stiggs any harm. Hustle, though-for tigers are slippery customers, you know."

Stiggs nodded dubiously, and set off on his errand. Ralph kept an eye on the side of the tower where the lower entrance was, ready to warn anyone approaching.

He could hear the animal occupant of the room below moving about. Then it quieted down, after a jangle of metal pieces. Ralph figured out that it had made its lair in the darkest corner of the apartment where there was a heap of old junk.

He looked down the ladder, but did not venture below.

It was about ten minutes after Stiggs had departed on his errand, that Ralph had occasion to warn a newcomer.

He had watched this person cross the tracks from Railroad Street in a rather lurching, irresponsible way.

As he came nearer, Ralph recognized the belligerent friend of his predecessor at the switch tower, Young Slavin.

Ralph had not seen nor heard from Slavin, Bemis, or Ike Slump since his adventure with the trio at "The Signal" restaurant on lower Railroad Street.

As Slavin drew nearer, Ralph judged, from the way that he glanced up at the tower, that this was his intended goal, and, from the way he clenched his fists and hunched up his shoulders, that he had got himself primed for some mischief.

Slavin halted as he got within ten feet of the switch tower. In a stupid, solemn sort of way he scanned its side, trying to determine where its entrance was located. Ralph stuck his head out of the window.

"Hello, there!" he hailed.

"Hello, yerself!" retorted Slavin, finding some difficulty in steadying himself as he crooked his neck to make out his challenger. "Who's that? Fill my heart with joy by just telling me it's the fellow I'm looking for-young Fairbanks!"

"That is who it is," responded Ralph promptly. "Want me?"

"Do I!" chuckled Slavin, cutting a pigeon-wing and giving a free exhibition of pugilist fist play. "Oh, don't I! Business, strictly business-young man. Will you come down, or shall I come up?"

"I don't want to see you bad enough to come down," observed Ralph. "As to coming up, I warn you not to attempt it, just at present."

"Afraid, eh?" jeered Slavin.

"Was I the other night?" asked Ralph pointedly.

"That was a foul," cried Slavin wrathfully. "I've come for satisfaction now, and I'm going to have it."

"Not in working hours, and not here," declared Ralph definitely. "Hold on, Slavin!" he called in some alarm, as his irresponsible visitor rounded the structure, bent on forcing an entrance. "Hey, stop! Don't go in there."

Slavin had reached the lower door of the tower room.

"I tell you to stop!" cried Ralph strenuously. "There's a wild beast in there-the tiger that escaped from the circus."

"You can't bluff me," retorted Young Slavin, making a determined lurch through the doorway.

Ralph ran to a window sill and seized a long iron wrench lying there. He was really alarmed for the safety of his would-be visitor.

At all odds, he felt it his duty to save even an acknowledged enemy from a foolhardy fate.

Ralph got to the trap, and started to descend the ladder.

A curdling yell rang out from below, and Ralph saw tiger and pugilist whirling together in a maze of wild confusion.

CHAPTER XII-THE SUPERINTENDENT'S OPINION

It seemed as if the escaped circus tiger had disputed the intrusion of Young Slavin just as it had previously that of Ralph.

Whether his belligerent enemy had tried to beat off the animal, or it had attacked Slavin as he attempted to ascend the ladder, Ralph could not tell. One thing was sure, however: the impetuous "champeen" found himself in the mix-up of his life.

The tiger was growling and snarling. Slavin was uttering muffled shouts of terror and pain. Ralph fairly dropped down half a dozen rungs of the ladder.

The wrench with which he had armed himself was heavy, and had a very long handle. Six feet from the floor of the lower tower room, Ralph leaned as far out as he could, holding on to the ladder by one foot and one hand.

Swinging the wrench in the other hand and watching his opportunity, Ralph landed a sturdy whack directly on top of the head of the infuriated tiger.

The blow was severe enough to crack the skull of a human being. The tiger, however, only ducked its head and sneezed, but it relaxed its hold of Slavin.

Ralph saw its great paw cut the air in one lightning-like downward stroke. He saw Slavin, with a curdling shriek, bound through the doorway like a ball. Then the tiger turned, caught sight of his new assailant, and crouched with a malignant snarl, posing for a spring.

Ralph took aim. He let go of the heavy wrench, using it as a missile now. It struck the tiger squarely between the eyes, throwing the animal off its balance. Then with due agility Ralph shot up the ladder like a steeple-jack.

Once in the tower room he closed the trap and fastened it down. A glance from its window showed some commotion in the yards round about.

A wild, tattered figure was scudding in frenzy for the street. It was Young Slavin. He was hatless, and, from neck to heel down his back, every garment he wore was ripped exactly in two as if slashed scientifically by a butcher-knife.

This envelope of tatters and Slavin's fearful outcries had attracted the attention of flagmen, engineers, and brakemen in the vicinity. They shouted after the scurrying fugitive, they even tried to head him off for an explanation. Slavin, however, lost to reason for the moment, made a mad bee-line for Railroad Street, and disappeared behind some freight sheds.

Ralph hailed a roundhouse hand carrying a bucket of oil.

"Shut the lower door, will you?" he asked.

The man did so. It operated on a spring, and all he had to do was to detach a hook from a staple that held it open.

"Slip the padlock," continued Ralph.

"Why, that will lock you in!" exclaimed the bewildered oilman.

"That's all right," answered Ralph. "Thanks."

He smiled to himself as he answered some switch calls. The smile broadened as he ran over the exciting incidents of the hour.

Young Slavin was probably more scared than hurt. In his muddled condition, amid the semi-darkness of the lower tower room he might not have discerned or realized what had attacked him.

"He will report me a demon, and his friends will think me one, if he shows up in those tatters, laying his plight to my charge," smiled Ralph. "Well, I fancy 'the young Hercules' has got all the satisfaction he wants for the present."

In about fifteen minutes Ralph leaned from the window to greet a coterie he had been expecting for some time.

Stiggs, placid-faced and leisurely as usual, led a party Ralph had seen grouped around the circus cages on the street tracks at noon.

The six menagerie men still carried their equipment for capturing the escaped tiger: pikes, hooks, halter chain, and muzzle.

The manager, his hat stuck back on his head, nervously chewing a match and urging Stiggs to hurry, looked very much excited.

"Come, can't you hustle a bit?" Ralph heard him say to Stiggs. "Where's your tiger?"

Stiggs pointed up to the switch tower.