"Three empty freights kindling wood, front of the engine stove in,"

reported the fireman.

"No one hurt?"

"Not a soul."

"Thank Heaven!" murmured Ralph presently.

"I jumped, after the shutting down of the air brakes," went on the fireman. "So did Foster. But say, kid, why in the world didn't you give us the long siding?"

"Orders from limits for 7," explained Ralph. "It was a desperate chance. I took it, and gave you 6, for 7 was in use with a sleeper. Are you going to the depot? Please tell the dispatcher our 'phone is burned out, something wrong at limits, and to send to me for a report right away."

"There's a mix-up all along the line, the way things look," observed the fireman, disappearing.

Ralph took up a position at an open window. He watched the lanterns bobbing along the tracks and at the depot.

He was unnerved and in a direful condition of suspense. Only the glad thought that no loss of life attended the collision sustained him.

The train dispatcher's a.s.sistant put in an appearance in about twenty minutes. He looked fl.u.s.tered as he told Ralph that they had two wrecks on their hands.

Ralph made his report clearly, concisely. His visitor looked astonished as he learned of the amazing gyrations of the signal dial.

"You're a brick, just the same, Fairbanks!" said the man, as Ralph concluded his report. "If the freight had got track 7, there would have been a fine slaughter for the railroad company to pay for."

"I disobeyed orders," observed Ralph in a depressed tone.

"Whose orders?"

"Limits."

"Limits seems to have made a fine mess of it all along the line, and we are going to find out why, very promptly."

"I wish you would send a messenger for Mr. Knight," said Ralph. "I think he ought to be here to straighten things out."

"We have done that already."

"Look--see!" cried Ralph suddenly.

The dial began its strange manifestations again. The man from the dispatcher's office started, gulped, and with a mutter of astonishment and concern ran down the trap ladder.

The depot yards became a scene of activity as the minutes wore on.

The seriousness of the occasion, with three trains out of service, called for immediate attention. Handcars were flitting hither and thither. Ralph was kept busy sending them on their way.

The master mechanic, depot master, and Jack Knight made up one handcar load. Two engines with tackle and relief cars came down from the roundhouse, lining up at the side of the through freight.

Ralph was fully watchful and employed for the next hour. Then he became dreadfully anxious. A handcar bolted right under the windows of the switch tower. The master mechanic and Jack Knight got off, and came up the ladder a minute later.

Ralph stood holding to the armchair, a picture of suspense. The master mechanic looked grave and bothered. On the contrary, bluff and hearty as ever, Knight came forward. He grasped Ralph by both shoulders, swinging him backwards and forwards in a playful, encouraging way.

"Shake, old fellow!" he sang out, slipping one hand down one arm and gripping Ralph's fingers heartily.

"Why?" asked Ralph with a half-smile. "Good-bye? I suppose that is the programme for me," he added, with an anxious look at the master mechanic.

"What's that?" demanded old Jack keenly. "Oh, on account of the through freight? Humph! If the Great Northern don't appreciate the wise, wide-awake common sense that saw the difference between three old box cars and eleven precious human lives, I'll take my walking papers instanter. Is that right, Mr. Blake?" challenged Knight.

"Yes," nodded the master mechanic, "your sentiment is right, Mr. Knight.

I have nothing but praise for the good judgment young Fairbanks has shown."

"But I disobeyed orders," suggested Ralph in an uncertain tone.

"Orders?" sniffed Knight--"yes, luckily! A crazy man's order."

"Why, what do you mean?" inquired Ralph in perplexity.

"What I say. For three hours the limits tower has been in charge of a stark, raving lunatic--the Great Northern railroad system the plaything of a madman. Never has this company been so near wreck and ruin. And you, Fairbanks," added the veteran towerman, with a tender, fatherly touch on the arm of his young protege--"you saved your end of the line!"

CHAPTER XX--THE CRAZY ORDERS

All Stanley Junction was agog with the story of the "crazy" train orders the day after the storm.

It was one of the most remarkable occurrences of risk and danger ever known in the history of the Great Northern.

Expert railroad men looked grave, as the facts came out. Citizens generally shuddered, as they realized how nearly the caprice of a mad leverman had come to causing wide-spread death and disaster.

Ralph Fairbanks himself was thrilled and amazed, as he learned from Jack Knight's lips the facts of the case.

From ten o'clock the evening the storm until nearly two o'clock the ensuing morning, a madman had controlled the Great Northern train system at Stanley Junction, out and in.

For over three hours, therefore, Ralph, at the depot switch tower, had been the plaything of a crazed, delirious human being, who, by force and cunning, had usurped the place of trusty, experienced old Joe Bryson.

This was the way it had all come about:

When the master mechanic and Jack Knight reached the limits tower after the report of the double wreck, they had found it in total darkness.

The ladder trap was bolted. They had to break the trap open. Entering the tower room and securing a light, they discovered a strange and startling condition of affairs.

Lying on the floor in a heavy, leaden sleep, was Bryson. Crouching in a corner, with lurid eyes, physical strength exhausted, but raving in wild delirium, was Doc Bortree.

The telephone receiver was smashed, and the transmitter lay torn loose, wires and all, on the floor. Other parts of the tower equipment were in rare disorder. The west levers were set in all kinds of erratic and impracticable shapes.

It took the two railroad men fully half an hour to restore order from the chaos in the tower and along the tracks. It took them double that time to arouse Bryson, and to get Bortree into a state of partial coherency. They sent messengers to Bortree's home. They listened to Bryson's confused story. Then, putting this and that together, they finally got the truth of affairs. Doc Bortree, as Ralph knew, had been confined to his bed with a high fever for nearly a week. That was why, compelled to share two long shifts with Knight alone, Ralph happened to be on all-night duty at the present time.

It seemed that early in the evening, Bortree's sister had left her brother sleeping quietly. He appeared to be on the mend.