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

CHAPTER XXX-THE RIGHT OF WAY

The peculiar announcement of Ralph's host was so grandiloquent, and his manner so lofty and important, that the young railroader smiled despite himself.

Certainly Ralph decided the Dover & Springfield Short Line had its headquarters in a particularly isolated place, and its presentation of physical resources was limited.

"I never heard of that road before," observed Ralph.

"Probably not," answered his host-"you will hear of it, though, and others, in the near future."

Ralph did not attach much importance to the prediction. He had seen at a glance that Gibson was an erratic individual, his hermit life had probably given birth to some visionary ideas, and his railroad, simmered down to the tangible, had undoubtedly little real foundation outside of his own fancies and dreams.

Ralph changed his mind somewhat, however, as he crossed the threshold of the door, for he stood in the most remarkable apartment he had ever entered.

This was a long, low room with a living space at one end, but the balance of the place had the unmistakable characteristics of a depot and railway office combined.

In fact it was the most "railroady" place Ralph had ever seen. Its walls were rude and rough, its furniture primitive and even grotesque, but everything harmonized with the idea that this was the center of an actual railroad system in operation.

There were benches as if for passengers. In one corner with a grated window was a little partitioned off space labeled "President's Office." Hanging from a strap were a lot of blank baggage checks, on the walls were all kinds of railroad timetables, and painted on a board running the entire width of the room were great glaring black letters on a white background, comprising the announcement: "Dover & Springfield Short Line Railroad."

To complete the presentment, many sheets of heavy manilla paper formed one entire end of the room, and across their surface was traced in red and black paint a zigzag railway line.

One terminal was marked "Dover," the other "Springfield." There were dots for minor stations, crosses for bridges and triangles for water tanks.

Ralph readily comprehended that this was the plan of a railroad right-of-way crossing The Barrens north and south from end to end, and the big blue square in the center was intended to indicate the headquarters where he now stood in the presence of the actual and important president of the Dover & Springfield Short Line Railroad.

Ralph must have been two full minutes taking in all this, and when he had concluded his inspection he turned to confront Gibson, whose face showed lively satisfaction over the fact that the layout had interested and visibly impressed his visitor.

"Well," he challenged in a pleased, proud way, "how does it strike you?"

"Why," said Ralph, "to tell the truth, I am somewhat astonished."

"That is quite natural," responded Gibson. "The idea of the world in general of a railroad headquarters is plate glass, mahogany desks and pompous heads of departments, looking wise and spending money. The Short Line has no capital, so we have to go in modest at the start. All the same, we have system, ideas and, what is surer and better than all that put together, we have the Right of Way."

"The Right of Way?" repeated Ralph, taking in the announcement at its full importance.

"Yes, that means what? That under the strictest legal and full state authority we have a franchise, empowering us to construct and operate a railway from Dover to Springfield, and vesting in us the sole title to a hundred-foot strip of land clear across The Barrens, with additional depot and terminal sites.

"That must be a very valuable acquisition," said Ralph.

"I am not used to talking my business to outsiders," responded Gibson, "and you are one of the very few who have ever been allowed to enter this place. I admit you for strong personal reasons, and I want to explain to you what they are."

He sat down on one of the benches and waved Ralph to the one opposite. His mobile face worked, as silently for a minute or two he seemed concentrating his ideas and choosing his words.

"I am a strange man," he said finally, "probably a crank, and certainly not a very good man, as my record goes, but circumstances made me what I am."

A twinge of bitterness came into the tones, and his eyes hardened.

"The beginning of my life," proceeded Gibson, "was honest work as a farmer-the end of it is holding on with bulldog tenacity to all there is left of the wreck of a fortune. That's the layout here. The Short Line, no one knows it-no one cares-just yet. But no one can ever wrest it from me. Ten years ago, when the Great Northern was projected, your father saw that a road across here was a tactical move, but the investors were in a hurry to get a line through to Springfield, and dropped this route. Later the Midland Central cut into Dover. They too never guessed what a big point they might have made cutting through here to Springfield. Well, I got possession of the franchise. I had to bide my time and stay in the dark. To-day, with the Short Line completed, I would hold the key to the traffic situation of two States, could demand my own price from either railroad for it, and they would run up into the millions outbidding each other, for the road getting the Short Line completely dominates all transfer passenger and freight business north and south."

"Why, I see that," said Ralph, roused up with keen interest. "It becomes a bee-line route, saving twenty or thirty miles' distance, and opens up a new territory."

"You've struck it. Now then, what I want to lead up to is Farrington-Gasper Farrington. You know him?"

"Yes, I know him," assented Ralph emphatically.

"Between my old honest life and the dregs here his figure looms up prominently," resumed Gibson. "Around him has revolved much concerning your father and myself in the past. Around him will loom up considerable concerning you and myself in the future. For this reason I take you into my confidence-to join issues, to grasp the situation and to move down on the enemy. In a word: Gasper Farrington ruined my chances in life. In another, he robbed your father."

Ralph was becoming intensely interested.

"He robbed my father, you say?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure of that, Mr. Gibson?"

"I am positive of it. I have the proofs. Even without those proofs, my unsupported word would substantiate the charge. The more so, because I helped him do it."

CHAPTER XXXI-A REMARKABLE CONFESSION

"You helped Gasper Farrington rob my father!" exclaimed Ralph.

"Yes," answered Gibson unhesitatingly.

Ralph wondered how he could make the admission thus boldly and unblushingly. Gibson, however, acted like a man who had taken a desperate stand with an important end to attain, and for the time being at least had set aside all questions of sentiment and conscience.

"It will be brief," said Gibson, after a pause. "When the Great Northern was on its first boom and everybody gone wild to invest in its bonds, I caught the fever too. My wife had died and I had no children, and converting my land into cash I came up to Stanley Junction with thirty thousand dollars in my pocket. I was always stuck on railroading. I fancied myself a director, riding in the president's car and distributing free passes to my friends. In a black moment in my life I ran afoul of Gasper Farrington. He took me under his wing and encouraged my visionary ideas. At that time your father had twenty thousand dollars in Great Northern bonds. They were not all paid for, but nearly so. They were, in fact, held by a bank as trustee in what is known as escrow-that is, subject to his call on payment of the small sum still due on them. Your father had great confidence in Farrington. So had I. I put my capital in his hands."

Gibson became so wrought up in his recital that he could not sit still. He got up and paced the floor.

"If we had kept to a straight investment, your father and I," proceeded Gibson, "we would have been all right. But Farrington dazzled us with his stock-jobbing schemes. He actually did let us into a deal where by dabbling in what is called margins we increased our pile considerably. In about a month, however, he had us where he wanted us. That is, he had our affairs so mixed up and complicated that neither of us knew just where we stood, and didn't dare to make a move without his advice. For some time we had all been dabbling in Midland Central securities. One day, after he had got me to buy a big block of that stock, the market broke. I was a pauper."

"Had Mr. Farrington lost too?" inquired Ralph.

"He pretended that he had, but later I found that he was the very person who was manipulating the stocks on the sly, and trimming us. We had a bitter quarrel. Then he said all was fair in war and business. I was desperate, lad, about my money, and when he set up a plan to get hold of your father's bonds, I went into it. I am sorry now. I was crazy those days, I guess, money-mad!"

The man's candor vouched for his sincerity, but Ralph looked sad and disturbed.

"Anyway, he got your father in a tight corner, and I helped him do it. It was a complicated deal. I can't say that Farrington stole those bonds outright, but in a roundabout way they finally came into his possession. If the transaction was ever ripped up, I don't believe it would stand in law. But I don't know that positively. Your father lost his bonds, and I got nothing out of the transaction. But there is something else that I want to get at. A little later, never doubting Farrington's honesty, your father gave him a mortgage on his homestead. It was done to protect your mother-that is, feeling himself getting involved, your father wished to be sure that she had at least a shelter over her head. There was no consideration whatever in the deal. It was merely put temporarily in the shape of a mortgage until affairs had cleared somewhat, when it was to be deeded to a third party, and then direct to your mother."

"Then Mr. Farrington never had a right to collect that interest money," said Ralph.

"He wasn't entitled to a cent of it. Farrington then got me into another deal. I had borrowed one thousand dollars from my brother. He got me to take security for it, as he called it. In some way he had got hold of the old Short Line charter here. At that time it was treated as a joke, and considered worthless. I didn't know it. He got my thousand dollars, claimed to lose it in a deal, and I was flat broke."

"And later?" suggested Ralph, recalling in an instant what he had heard from Big Denny about Gibson.

"Well, I got hard pressed. I saw a chance to get even with him. We were in a deal together. I canceled it to get a few hundred dollars, and signed our joint names as a firm. Later I learned that I had a right only to sign my own name. I went to his house. He threatened to have me arrested for forgery the next day, showed me the forged paper, as he called it, and a warrant he had sworn out. We had a fearful row. I beat him up good and proper, smashed some windows, and, disgusted with life and mankind, fled to this wilderness."

It was a vivid recital, running like some romance. Gibson took breath, and concluded:

"A man can't sit forever eating out his heart in loneliness. I knew that Farrington would not hesitate to send me to jail. I located here. One day, yonder faithful fellow, Van Sherwin, came along. He was an orphan outcast, I took him in. His company gave a new spur to existence. I got casting up accounts. I rarely ventured to the towns, but I sent him to a relative, who loaned me a few hundred dollars. I investigated the Short Line business, even paid a lawyer to look it up. I found I had something tangible, and that for a certain date, then two months ahead, provided I did some work each day except Sunday thenceforward on the right of way, I could hold the franchise indefinitely, unimpaired. Since then, Van and I have been at the grading work, as you see."

"And why did you write to my father? inquired Ralph.

"My hard, bad nature has changed since Van came here to cheer me with his loyal companionship," said Gibson. "I always felt I had wronged your father. I wrote to him, thinking him still alive, to come and see me. Instead, you come as his representative. Very well, this is what I want to say: I am willing to make the statements in writing that I have given to you verbally. That, you may say, is of no practical benefit to you. But here is something that is: My sworn statement that the mortgage was in reality a trust will cancel everything. That means something for you, doesn't it?"

"It means a great deal-yes, indeed," assented Ralph.

"Very well," said Gibson. "You go and use the information I have given you, the threat to expose Farrington, to get him to destroy that forged note he holds against me, so that I can come out into the daylight a free man to put my railroad project on foot, and I will give to you a sworn statement that in any court of law will compel him to surrender to your mother, free and clear, your home. And I won't say right now what I will be glad to do for the widow and son of John Fairbanks, when the Short Line is an assured fact and a success."

CHAPTER XXXII-FOUND

It did not take Ralph long to figure out the merits and prospects of the proposition that Farwell Gibson had made to him.

As the latter went more into details concerning his own and Mr. Fairbanks' dealings with Gasper Farrington, Ralph felt a certain pity for the hermit. He had been the weak, half-crazed tool of a wicked, cool headed plotter, had repented his share of the evil doings, and was bent on making what restitution he might.

The peculiar situation of affairs, Ralph's quick-witted comprehension of things, above all his kindness to Van Sherwin, had completely won Gibson's confidence.

They had many little talks together after that. They compared notes, suggested mutually plans for carrying out their campaign against the Stanley Junction magnate, legally and above board, but guarding their own interests warily, for they knew they had a wily, unscrupulous foe with whom to contend.

Gibson insisted that they could do nothing but rest that day and the next, and when the third day drifted along he took Ralph for an inspection of his enterprise.

There was not the least doubt but that Gibson had a valuable proposition and that he had legally maintained his rights in the premises.

"Every day except Sunday within the prescribed period of the charter, I have done work on the road as required by law," he announced to Ralph. "Van's affidavit will sustain me in that. Everything is in shape to present the scheme to those likely to become interested. It will be no crooked stock deal this time, though," he declared, with vehemence. "It's a dead-open-and-shut arrangement, with me as sole owner-it's a lump sum of money, or the permanent control of the road."

Van's eyes sparkled at this, and Ralph looked as if he would consider it a pretty fine thing to come in with the new line under friendly advantages, and work up, as he certainly could work up with Gibson so completely disposed to do all he could to forward his interests.

Next morning Ralph said he had other business to attend to. It was to go to Dover in pursuance with his instructions from Matthewson, the road detective of the Great Northern.

It was arranged that Van should drive him over in the gig. If Ralph made any important discoveries that required active attention, he was to remain on the scene. If not, he promised to return to "headquarters" on his way back to Stanley Junction.

Ralph reached Dover about noon, and put in four hours' time. He located Jacobs, the man to whom the stolen fittings were to have gone, he saw the local police, and he gathered up quite a few facts of possible interest to Matthewson, but none indicating the present whereabouts of Ike Slump, his tramp friend, or the load of plunder.

"Did you find out much?" Van inquired, as they started homewards about five o'clock.

"Nothing to waste time over here," replied Ralph. "I imagine the Great Northern has seen the last of its two thousand dollars' worth of brass fittings, and Stanley Junction of Ike Slump, for a time at least."

The Gibson habitation was more accessible from this end of The Barrens than from the point at which Ralph and Van had four days previously entered it.

There was a road for some ten miles, and then one along a winding creek for half that distance. Beyond that lay the jungle.

The sun was just going down when they forded the creek. The spot was indescribably wild and lonely. Its picturesque beauty, too, interested the boys, and they were not averse to a halt in mid-stream, the horse luxuriating in a partial bath and enjoying a cool, refreshing drink.

Suddenly Ralph, who had been taking in all the lovely view about them, put a quick hand on Van's arm.

"Right away!" he said, with strange incision-"get ashore and in the shelter of the brush."

"Eh! what's wrong?" interrogated Van, but obediently urged up the horse, got to the opposite bank, and halted where the shrubbery interposed a dense screen.

"Now-what?" he demanded.

Ralph made a silencing gesture with his hand. He dropped from his seat, went back to the edge of the greenery, and peered keenly down stream.

He seemed to be watching somebody or something, and was so long at it that Van got impatient, and leaping from the wagon approached his side.

"What's up?" he asked.

Ralph did not reply. Van peered past him. Down stream about five hundred feet a human figure stood, faced away from the ford, bent at work over some kind of a frame structure partly in the water.

"You seem mightily interested!" observed Van.

"I am," answered Ralph, and his tone was quite intense. "I expect to be still more so when that fellow faces about."

"If he ever does. There-he has!" spoke Van.

Ralph drew back from his point of observation, took a quick breath, and was palpably excited.

"I was right," he said, half to himself. "There's work here."

"Say," spoke Van, impatiently and curiously, "you're keeping me on nettles. What are you talking about, anyway?"

"That fellow yonder. Do you know who he is?"

"Of course I don't."

"I do-it's Ike Slump."

CHAPTER XXXIII-IKE SLUMP'S RAFT

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Van.

"Yes," declared Ralph-"the missing Ike Slump is found. I would know him anywhere, in any guise, and at any distance, and that is he yonder."

"You don't seem to have luck or anything in finding opportunities-and people!" observed Van dryly.

"I don't know about that."

"There's the boy the railroad company wants to find, isn't it?"

"Well, Ike Slump alone, a vagabond fugitive, isn't so much what they are after," explained Ralph. "They want to recover that stolen plunder, and from the general appearance of Slump I don't imagine he has much of anything visible about him except what he probably calls 'hard luck.'"

"What are you going to do?"

"Have a talk with him first, if I can."

Ralph reflected for a few moments. Then he decided on a course of action. He suggested that Van remain where he was. Lining the shore himself, Ralph kept well in the shelter of the shrubbery until he was directly opposite the spot where the object of his interest was at work.

He could not secure more than a general idea of what Ike was about unless he exposed himself to view. Ike seemed to be framing together a raft. He was very intent on his task-so much so, that when Ralph finally decided to show himself he was not aware of a visitor until Ralph stood directly at his side.

"How do you do, Slump?" spoke Ralph, as carelessly as though meeting him on the streets of Stanley Junction in an everyday recognition.

"Hi! who-smithereens! Stand back!"

Ike let out a whoop of amazement. He jumped back two feet. Then he stared at his visitor in a strained attitude, too overcome to speak coherently.

"Ralph Fairbanks!" he spluttered.

Ralph nodded pleasantly.

Ike grew more collected. He presented a wretched appearance. He was thin, hungry-looking, sullen of manner, and evidently dejected of spirit.

A sudden suspicion lit up his face as he glanced furtively into the shrubbery beyond his visitor, as though fearing other intruders. Then with his old time tricky nimbleness he described a kind of a sliding slip, and seized a short iron bar lying on the ground.

"What do you want?" he demanded, with a scowl.

"I want to have a talk with you, Ike."

"What about?"

"Your mother."

Ralph had heard back at Stanley Junction that Ike's mother had mourned her son's evil course as a judgment sent upon them because her husband sold liquor. He felt sorry for her, as Ike now shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and not a gleam of home-longing or affection followed the allusion to his mother.

"Did you come specially for that?" demanded Ike. "Because if you did, how did you know I was here?"

"I didn't-this meeting is purely accidental."

"Oh!" muttered Ike incredulously.

"I'll be plain, Slump," said Ralph, "for I see you don't welcome my company or my mission. Your father is worried to death about you, your mother is slowly pining away. If you have any manhood at all, you will go home."

"What for?" flared out Ike, savagely swinging the iron rod-"to get walloped! Worse, to get jugged! You played me a fine trick spying into Cohen's and getting the gang in a box. I ought to just kill you, I ought!"

"Well, hear what I have to say before you begin your slaughter," said Ralph quietly. "Out of sympathy for your mother, and because your father has friends among the railroad men, I think the disposition of the railroad company is to treat you with leniency in the matter of the stolen junk, if you show you are ready to do the square thing."

"They can't prove a thing against me!" shouted Ike wrathfully. "Think I don't know how affairs stand? They can't do anything with Cohen, either, unless some one peaches-and no one will."

"Don't be too sure of that," advised Ralph. "They can lock you up, and if they delve very deep, can convict you on circumstantial evidence. But I don't want to discuss that. It's plain business, and now is your time to act. Go home, give the company a chance to get back its property, and I'll guarantee they will deal lightly with you-this time."

"Put my head in the jaws of the lion?" derided Ike-"not much! Say, Ralph Fairbanks, what do you take me for? And what do I know about their stolen plunder?"

"You drove off from Stanley Junction that night with it."

"Prove it!"

"You and your tramp friend. I was at Dover to-day. Your tramp friend sold those two horses belonging to Cohen twenty miles further on, I learned."

"Drat him!" snarled Ike viciously.

"You wasn't with him. Did he give you the slip, and leave you in the lurch? It looks so. I wouldn't hold the bag for anybody, if I were you, Ike Slump," rallied Ralph.

"See here, Fairbanks," gritted Ike between his set teeth, "you know too much, you do!"

"Now what, in the meantime, became of the stolen brass fittings? You know. Tell. Give the company a square deal, and take another chance to drop bad company and behave yourself."

"I won't go home," declared Ike, with knit, sullen brows. "You start on about your business, and leave me to mine."

"All right," said Ralph. "I'd be a friend to you if you would let me. By the way, what is your business, Slump? Ah, I see-building a raft?"

"What of it?"

"And what for?"

"Say!" cried Ike, brandishing the rod furiously and trying to intimidate his visitor with a furious demonstration, "what do you torment me for! Get out! I'm building a raft because I'm a persecuted, hunted being, driven like a rat into a hole. I want to float to safety past the towns, and go west. And I'm going to do it!"

"Why not walk?" suggested Ralph.

Ike flared a glance of dark suspicion at Ralph.

"And why such a big raft?" pursued Ralph smoothly-"no, you don't! Now then, since you've forced the issue, lie still."

Ike had suddenly sprung towards Ralph, swinging the iron rod. The latter was watching him, however. In a flash he had the bad boy disarmed, lying flat on the ground, and sat astride of him, pinioning his arms outspread at full length.

Ralph gave a sharp, clear whistle. Van came rushing down the bank in the distance in response.

Ike Slump raved like a madman. He threatened, he pleaded. He even took refuge in tears. All the time, Ralph Fairbanks was making up his mind. That partially built raft had roused his suspicions very keenly, had suggested a new line of action, and he determined to follow the promptings of his judgment.

"There's a piece of rope yonder," said Ralph, as Van approached on a run. "Get it, and help me tie this young man hand and foot."

They did the job promptly and well, Ike Slump raving worse than ever in the meanwhile.

"Now then," directed Ralph, "help me carry him to the gig. Van, this is Ike Slump, of whom you have heard a little something. He is bound he won't further the ends of justice, and I am as fully determined that at least he shall not have his liberty to frustrate them. We will load him in the gig, take him to headquarters, and you are to ask our friend there as a special favor to me to keep him safely till he hears from me."

"I won't go!" yelled the squirming Ike-"I'll have your bones for this!"

"I would advise you," said Ralph to the frantic captive, "to behave yourself. You are going where you will have good treatment. Build up, and do some thinking. I shall be as friendly to you as if you hadn't tried to brain me."

"You don't mean," said the astonished Van, "that you are going to stay behind?"

"Yes," answered Ralph, with a significant glance at Ike. "I have an idea it is my clear duty to investigate why Ike Slump built that raft."