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

CHAPTER XIV-RALPH FAIRBANKS' REQUEST

Ralph felt the sense of a crisis strong upon him. Circumstances had given some stormy features to the morning's progress, but had cleared the air generally.

He believed, all told, that he had carried off the honors quite creditably, and was in a measure master of the situation.

When he came to the office door it was partly open, but he knocked.

"Come in," spoke the foreman's voice, a good deal toned down from its usual accents of asperity.

Tim Forgan stood over near the window, his back turned to Ralph. His hands, clasped behind him, fumbled nervously. He was palpably in a disturbed mood, and from the vague view Ralph had of his side face he noted it was pale and anxious-looking.

"Sit down," directed the foreman. He stood in the same position for nearly a minute. Then very abruptly he turned, came up to Ralph, extended his hand as if with an effort, and said, almost brokenly:

"Fairbanks, I want to thank you for what you have done for me and mine."

"I am glad I did it," answered Ralph simply.

The foreman sank into a chair, started to speak, arose, paced the floor restlessly, finally halted in front of Ralph, and looked him squarely in the face.

"Fairbanks," he said, "I believe I have done you an injustice. Don't answer. Let me speak while the mood is on me. I am a proud man, and it's hard for me to root out my settled suspicions. I won't say they are all gone yet, but after what has happened it would be wrong and churlish for me to hold back what is on my lips. When you came here this morning, I was satisfied that you came here as a spy upon my actions."

"Oh, Mr. Forgan!" explained Ralph involuntarily.

"And I prepared to treat you as a spy. I have had trouble with the master mechanic, off and on-that is, we are rivals in the race for the presidency of the local labor council, and Ike Slump's father, when I told him about your card from the master mechanic, scented a plot at once."

"Why, Mr. Forgan!" exclaimed Ralph in amazement, "I never saw the master mechanic until night before last, then only for less than two minutes, and my meeting with him was purely accidental."

The roundhouse foreman looked Ralph through and through.

"I believe you, Fairbanks," he said, at length. "You don't look like the lying, sneaking sort, and Denny says he'd bank his soul on you. He says I've got bad, crafty advisers. Maybe so, maybe so," went on Forgan, half to himself. "I wish I'd kept out of the labor ring. It makes one fancy half his friends enemies. Drop that, though. I've made my confession, and I believe you're square. I've sent for you to exonerate you from all part in the smash-up, and to tell you that I owe you a debt I can never pay. I'll try to square some of it, though. Fairbanks, you shall stay here, and I shall give you more than a chance to forge ahead."

"I thank you, Mr. Forgan," said Ralph gratefully.

The foreman strode over to the window again. Ralph studied this strange make-up of real force, dark suspicions and ungovernable impulses, but did not appear to watch him. In a covert way, with a sidelong glance at Ralph, the foreman opened the door of a little closet, took out a dark bottle, and Ralph could hear the gurgling dispatch of a long, deep draught.

He had overheard some of the men in the dog house hinting at the boss' failing, that morning. Now, Ralph knew what it was, and the discovery depressed him.

The stimulating draught seemed to restore the foreman's equilibrium, for in a minute or two, when he again addressed Ralph, his old half-dignified, half-autocratic manner had returned to him.

"We shall have no more Ike Slump here, father or no father," he observed. "I'm going to give you a chance, Fairbanks."

"Thank you, Mr. Forgan."

"Keep on as wiper till I get a new helper, and I'll give you a boost into an extra berth quicker than any boy ever shot up the roundhouse ladder before. I tell you, I'll never forget what you've done for me-and my dear little Nora!"

Ralph arose.

"Mr. Forgan," he said, "I am much obliged to you, and I hope I shall deserve and win your good opinion. But I want to earn my way. I don't wish to slip over one single branch of the course that will make a thorough, all-around, first-class railroad man out of me, and too fast promotion might spoil me."

The foreman understood him, but the liquor had exhilarated him, and he said:

"All the same, I'm your friend for life, Fairbanks-and I give you my word, when you ask me a favor, I'll grant it."

Ralph bowed and proceeded towards the door. Forgan was back at the closet almost immediately, Ralph wavered. He formed a quick resolution, and stepped back into the room just as the foreman turned, wiping off his lips.

"Mr. Forgan," said Ralph, "you will not be offended at something I feel it my duty to say?"

"Not a bit of it," pledged the foreman.

"You said I might ask you a favor."

"Just name it, Fairbanks."

"I shall, but first, I want to say this: You are in a fine, responsible position here, and your control and your influence affect every man in your service."

"I worked hard for the job," asserted Forgan proudly.

"I know you must have done that," said Ralph, "and I also know you must have had good abilities to step so high over the heads of others. But sometimes, Mr. Forgan-you will acknowledge it yourself-your temper, your impulses, your suspicions get the better of you."

Ralph was treading on dangerous ground. He realized it, for a certain quick flash came into Forgan's eyes. It was quenched, however, at an evident memory of the incident of the morning; and the foreman spoke, quite gayly:

"Go ahead, I'll listen. I see your drift."

"You have lots of friends, sir-try and know the real ones. And, Mr. Forgan, now for the favor I have to ask."

The foreman's bushy brows met in a suspicious way, but he declared promptly:

"You have only to ask."

"You will grant it?"

"For little Nora's sake, lad, I'd give you half I own!"

"I don't want that, Mr. Forgan. The favor I have to ask is-don't drink."

It was out, with an effort-Ralph had placed a pleading hand on the foreman's arm. He felt Forgan start and quiver. Would he burst into one of his uncontrollable fits of passion and storm and rave, and probably assault him?

The climax delayed so long that Ralph ventured another appeal.

"For little Nora's sake, Mr. Forgan!" he pleaded.

"Boy, you have said enough-go! go!" spoke Forgan huskily.

He almost pushed Ralph from the room. The door went shut, with Ralph standing outside, his breath coming quickly, for the episode had been one of intense strain.

Ralph sighed. Had he gone too far? The sincerity of his wish for the foreman's good told him he had not.

In the little office he could hear Forgan striding to and fro. Suddenly there was a halt.

Then came a crash. If only for the time being, Tim Forgan had been influenced to a holy, beneficent decision. He had shattered the wretched black bottle to atoms.

"Thank God!" breathed the young railroader fervently.

CHAPTER XV-"VAN"

When the one o'clock whistle sounded, Ralph started over for the engine stalls.

"Hold on!" challenged the lame helper, suddenly appearing in his usual extraordinary way.

"What's the trouble?" asked Ralph.

"Boss says you're on the sick list."

"But I'm not!" declared Ralph with a smile and mock-valiantly waving his injured arm.

"Says you're to go home, and report in morning."

"But I can't do that," demurred Ralph.

"Must-orders."

"It would worry my mother, she would think something serious was wrong with me, while I feel as well as I ever did in my life-yes, better, even," insisted Ralph.

"Well, you're not to work, boss says-you can loaf, if you like."

"That's something I don't fancy."

"Then watch me, and I'll show you some things."

"Good!" assented Ralph. "If they are bound to have me invalided, at least let me learn something in the meantime."

Limpy did not talk much, but after an hour of his company Ralph voted him a wonder.

There must be some vivid history back of the man, Ralph theorized, for there were sparkles of real genius here and there in his movements and explanations of the next two hours.

He showed Ralph the true merits and economics of the wiper's avocation in a quick, practical way that proved Ike Slump was a novice and a bungler.

Then the helper took Ralph under his special tuition higher up in the scale.

Ralph was in a real transport of delighted interest as the lame helper taught him the first principles of preparing, running and controlling a locomotive.

He did something more than control a throttle or move a lever-he explained why this and that was done, and demonstrated cause and effect in a clear-cut way that gave Ralph more real, sound information in two hours than he could have gained from the study of books in as many months.

The foreman passed in and out of the place several times during the afternoon, but seemed almost studiously to avoid contact or conversation with Ralph.

About four o'clock the helper, busy wheeling away the broken bricks from the hole in the wall, nudged Ralph meaningly.

"Slump's old man," he said tersely.

Glancing towards the office, Ralph saw a coarse-featured, disorderly looking man conversing with the foreman.

The latter was cool, dignified and evidently laying down the law in an unmistakably clear manner to his visitor, who shrugged his shoulders, pounded his palms together, and seemed wroth and worked up over the situation they were discussing.

Ralph knew that Slump senior ran a saloon just beyond the freight sheds, and was glad to see him go off alone and evidently disgruntled and fancied he caught an expression on Forgan's face indicating that he had done his duty and was glad of it.

"Bad lot," commented Limpy, coming back for some more bricks.

"Foreman?"

"No, Slump. It was two of his poison drinks four years ago that sent me home one night on the wrong tracks, crippled me for life, lost me my run, and made a pensioned drudge of me for the rest of my years," declared the helper bitterly.

By five o'clock the débris had been cleared away from the break in the roundhouse wall, the derailed locomotive backed to place, and things ready for the masons to repair the damage in the morning.

Ralph was walking away from a cursory inspection of the spot, when a whistle sounded directly outside. Then a hissing voice echoed:

"Hey, Slump!"

Ralph turned. A man was moving around the edge of the break in the wall.

"I'm not Slump," announced Ralph. Then he recognized the stranger. It was the tramp-like individual who had come after Ike Slump's dinner pail two nights previous.

"Oh!" he now said, drawing back in a suspicious, embarrassed manner. "Where's Ike?"

"He has gone home, I suppose," answered Ralph.

"Didn't-that is, he hasn't left his dinner pail for me, has he?" floundered the tramp.

"No, he took it with him. At any rate, his locker is empty."

"All right," muttered the fellow, edging away.

Ralph remembered that heavily-weighted dinner pail of Ike Slump's with some suspicion. Still, Ike's explanation of furnishing the man with a daily lunch looked plausible.

"Hold on," called Ralph after the receding form.

"What is it?" inquired the tramp, wheeling about.

"I'll help you out-wait a minute."

Ralph hurried to his locker. Fully half of his noonday lunch had been left untasted. He bundled up the fragments and returned to the break in the wall.

"Here's a bite," said Ralph.

"Thank you," growled the tramp gruffly, taking the proffered lunch.

A minute later Ralph was summoned to a bench placed under the windows at the south curve of the building.

Limpy stood on the bench, looking out.

"Come here," he directed. "No use!"

"What do you mean?" inquired Ralph.

"Look."

Ralph, clambering up to the bench, had the retiring tramp in full view.

The latter was piece by piece firing the lunch he had given him at switches and signal posts, as if he had a special spite against it.

"Didn't come for food, you see?" observed the helper.

"What did he come for, then?" demanded Ralph, indignant and wrought up.

Limpy simply shrugged his shoulders, and went off about his duties.

Ralph was not sorry when the six o'clock whistle sounded. He had gone through an uncommon strain, both mental and physical, during the day, and was tired and glad to get home.

Limpy, in his smooth, quiet way, arranged it so that he left the roundhouse when Ralph did, and as the latter noticed that his companion kept watching out in all directions, he traced a certain voluntary guardianship in the man's intentions.

But if Limpy feared that Ike Slump or his satellites were lying in wait, it was not along the special route Ralph took in proceeding homewards.

He reached the little cottage with no unpleasant interruptions. His mother welcomed him at the gate with a bright smile. Their boy guest was weeding out a vegetable bed. He immediately came up to Ralph, extending a beautifully clean full-grown carrot he had selected from its bed.

Ralph took it, patting the giver encouragingly on the shoulder, who looked satisfied, and Ralph was pleased at this indication that the boy knew him.

"How has he been all day?" Ralph inquired of his mother.

"Just as you see him now," answered the widow. "He has been busy all day, willing, happy as a lark. The doctor dropped in this afternoon."

"What did he say?" asked Ralph.

"He says there is nothing the matter with the boy excepting the shock. He fears no violent outbreak, or anything of that kind, and only hopes that gradually the cloud will leave his mind."

"If kindness can help any, he will get sound and well," declared Ralph chivalrously. "He doesn't talk much?"

"Hardly a word, but he watches, and seems to understand everything."

"What is that?" asked Ralph, pausing as they passed together through the side door.

The wood shed door was scrawled over with chalk marks Ralph had not seen there before.

"Oh," explained Mrs. Fairbanks, "he found a piece of chalk, and seemed to take pleasure in writing every once in a while."

"And just one word?"

"Yes, Ralph-those three letters."

"V-A-N," spelled out Ralph. "Mother, that must be his name-Van."

CHAPTER XVI-FACE TO FACE

Ralph Fairbanks' second day of service at the roundhouse passed pleasantly, and without any incident out of the common.

With the disappearance of Ike Slump a new system of order and harmony seemed to prevail about the place. The foreman's rugged brow was less frequently furrowed with care or anger over little mishaps, and Ralph could not help but notice a more subdued tone in his dealings with the men.

When Ralph came home that evening, his mother told him of a visit from the foreman's daughter-in-law and little Nora. They had brought Mrs. Fairbanks a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and their praises of Ralph had made the widow prouder of her son than ever.

That morning, Van, as they now called their guest, had insisted on going with Ralph to his work as far as the next corner, and it was with difficulty that the young railroader had induced him to return to the cottage.

That evening, Van met him nearly two squares away, and when he reached the house Ralph expressed some anxiety to his mother over their guest's wandering proclivities.

"I don't think he would go far away of his own will," said Mrs. Fairbanks. "You see, Ralph, he counts on your going and coming. This morning, after you sent him home, I found him on the roof of the house. He had got up there from the ladder, and was watching you till you were finally lost to view among the car tracks."

Ike Slump did not show up the third day. A fireman told Ralph that he had run away from home, and that his father had been looking for him. Ike had been seen in the town by several persons, but always at a distance, and evidently keeping in hiding with some chosen cronies most of the time.

"He's no good, and you'll hear from him in a bad way yet," was the railroader's prediction.

When No. 6 came into the roundhouse next morning, the extra who had taken engineer Griscom's place for two days told Ralph that the old veteran would be on hand to take out the afternoon west train himself.

Ralph got Limpy to help him put some fancy touches on the heaviest runner of the road. At noon he hurried home and back, and brought with him a bright little bouquet of flowers.

No. 6, standing facing the turntable at two o'clock that afternoon, was about as handsome a piece of metal as ever crossed the rails.

Old Griscom came into the roundhouse a few minutes later, his running traps slung over his arm, reported, and was surrounded by the dog house crowd.

This was his first public appearance since the fire at the yards. He still looked singed and shaken from his rough experience, but as he saw Ralph he extended his hand, and gave his young favorite a twist that almost made Ralph wince.

"On deck, eh?" he called cheerily. "Well, I call first choice when you get ready to fire coal."

"That's a long ways ahead, Mr. Griscom!" laughed Ralph.

"Forgan don't say so. Hi! what you giving me? A brand-new runner?"

The veteran engineer gave a start of prodigious animation and real pleased surprise as his glance fell on No. 6.

The headlight shone like a great dazzling brilliant, the brass work looked like gold. In the engineer's window stood the little bouquet, and the cab was as neat and clean as a housewife's kitchen.

Griscom swung onto his cushion with a kind of jolly cheer, and the foreman, catching the echo, waved his welcome and approbation in an unusually pleasant way from the door of his little office.

Big Denny had been a periodical visitor to the roundhouse since the rescue of little Nora Forgan.

He had taken a strong fancy to Ralph, it seemed, and whenever he had a few minutes to spare would seek out the young wiper, and seemed to take a rare pleasure in posting him on many a bit of technical experience in the railroading line.

He chatted with Ralph on this last occasion while the latter sat filling the firemen's cans with oil, and drew him out as to his home life, his mother and his reason for going to work.

"So Farrington holds a mortgage on your home?" said Denny. "I didn't know that. He's pretty rich, I hear. I remember the time, though, when people thought your father was his partner in some of his bond deals."

"Yes, mother supposed so, too," said Ralph.

"Your father put him onto the good thing the railroad was, first of all. I know that much," declared Denny.

"It looks as if my father lost all his holdings just before he died," said Ralph.

"Then Farrington got them, I'll wager that-the sly old fox!" commented Denny, who was generally strong in his personal convictions.

"Well, some day, when I am in a position to do so, I'm going to have Mr. Gasper Farrington hauled into court about the matter," observed Ralph. "If he has anything belonging to my mother and me, we want it."

"It seems to me you ought to find something among your father's papers shedding light on the subject?" suggested Denny.

"It looks as if my father had had blind confidence in Mr. Farrington," said Ralph.

"Yes, the old fox has a way of winding himself around his victims," declared the outspoken watchman. "I remember a fellow he wound up good and proper, about three years ago."

"Who was that?" asked Ralph.

"His name was Farwell Gibson. He got the railroad fever, sold his farm, came to the Junction, and he and Farrington had some deals. They had a big row one night, too, and Farrington threw Gibson out of his house, and some windows were broken. The neighbors heard Gibson accuse Farrington of robbing him. Next day, though, Farrington swore out a warrant against Gibson for forgery, and Gibson has never been seen since. Maybe," concluded Big Denny, "he killed him."

"Oh, he wouldn't do that!"

"Gasper Farrington has a heart as hard as flint," said Denny, "and would do anything for money."

"Farwell Gibson," murmured Ralph, memorizing the name.

When quitting-time came that evening, Ralph left the roundhouse alone, Limpy having been sent with a message to the depot.

As usual, he saved distance by following the tracks where they curved, then at a certain point cut through the unfenced back yards of some small stores fronting the depot street.

Beyond this was a prairie. Turning a heap of ties to take a last straight shoot for home, Ralph found his progress abruptly blocked.

"Thought we'd get you!" announced a familiar voice, and Ike Slump stepped into view.

CHAPTER XVII-THE BATTLE BY THE TRACKS

"What do you want?" demanded Ralph.

He did not at all look as if his hour had come, but he backed to a commanding position against the pile of ties, as half a dozen hoodlum companions of Ike Slump followed their leader into sight.

"Peel!" said Ike importantly, and he began to roll up his sleeves.

"I'm comfortable," suggested Ralph easily. "By the way, Ike, your father is looking for you."

"Never you mind about my affairs," retorted Ike. "It's you I've been waiting for, it's you I've got, and it's you I'm going to lick."

"What for?" asked Ralph.

"What for?" echoed Ike derisively-"hear him, fellows!"

"Ho! hear him!" echoed the motley crew at Ike's heels.

"I told you at the roundhouse that I'd pay you off, didn't I?" demanded Ike.

"I think I remember."

"Well, I'm going to do it."

"Here? And now?"

"Precisely."

"You insist that I've done something to be paid off for?"

"Yes. You insulted me."

"How?"

This was a poser. Ike was silent.

"Tell you, Slump," said Ralph, setting down his dinner pail. "You're just spoiling to do something mean. I never did you an injury, and I would like to do you some good, if I could. You're in bad company. You had better leave it and go home to your father. If you won't take advice, and are bound to force me to the wall-why, I'll do my share."