"Come in," sounded a vague direction from the little front parlor.

Ralph stepped into the hall and crossed the threshold of the parlor. He made out a figure dimly, standing by a chair.

"That you, Mr. Stiggs?" he observed. "Pretty dark here. Hold on--what is this?"

Ralph started back. The figure behind him had made a jump and had seized either arm of the youth by the wrist.

At the same moment a second person sprang from the shadows behind Ralph.

A rope encircled the young leverman's body, and Ralph Fairbanks was a prisoner.

CHAPTER XXI--IKE SLUMPS "NUTCRACKER"

Ralph was taken completely off his guard. He struggled violently, but his a.s.sailants had the advantage.

One of them pinioned his arms. The other tied the rope about them. A second rope was whipped about his ankles, and secured.

"Push him down," spoke a quick voice.

They half-lifted, half-dropped their prisoner. Ralph was thrust down into an old easy-chair.

"Now then, shut the door and fetch the lamp," was the next order.

Ralph was too astonished to say anything for a minute or two. One of his captors flitted from the room. The front door slammed shut. Then the fellow ran to the kitchen and brought in a lamp and placed it on a table.

"Well," he said with a great chuckling guffaw, "how's Mr. Ralph Fairbanks?"

"Slump--Ike Slump, eh?" spoke Ralph calmly, but following a start of some surprise.

"Don't miss me, Ralphy," suggested Slump's companion in a tone of sneering mockery.

"And Mort Bemis?" added Ralph coolly. "Good-evening, gentlemen--what can I do for you?"

"Nervy!" sneered Slump--"but it won't last. It's what we're going to do that will interest you, Ralph Fairbanks."

Ralph looked over the enemy with a steadfast glance. They were certainly "dressed to kill." He noticed that their clothing was of the most expensive grade. For all that, it was disordered and ill-fitting.

They looked as they had not slept regularly for a week, and when they did, seemed to have made any old place their resting-spot. Their faces bore marks of dissipation.

Their whole bearing indicated that the money they had recently come into had helped them down the road of idleness and crime.

"We've come back to the Junction specially to see you," observed Bemis, sinking upon a sofa opposite their helpless prisoner.

"Yes, unfinished business, ha! ha!" jeered Ike Slump, looking mightily bad and vicious as he proceeded to light a cigarette. "We owe you one, as you'll perhaps remember. You put the police onto me."

Ralph had not done this. As the reader knows, it was the act of Van Sherwin. Ralph, however, did not care to enlighten his captors as to the real facts of the case.

"And you stole my job from me," added Mort Bemis savagely. "You've put Young Slavin up to queer us, too."

"So," resumed Slump, "seeing we did one good job for a certain liberal gentleman in Stanley Junction, we'll try and please him in another. At the same time, we get good and even with you for ourselves."

"I can easily guess you might please Gasper Farrington with anything that means harm to me, if that is what you are getting at," observed Ralph pointedly.

"Who mentioned Farrington?" demanded Slump.

"He went on your bond. It is pretty easy to guess you are in cahoots with him in some way," bluntly retorted Ralph.

Mort Bemis got up from his seat and strode up and down the room. Through a long tirade of his fancied wrongs, he worked himself up into a seething fury, real or pretended. Ralph's cool unconcern nettled him.

Once or twice he referred to the saving of the limited, and to other acts that had made Ralph popular and his friends proud of him.

"You robbed me of my chance," he snarled. "If I'd have been on deck, your luck would have fallen to me. I'm out for revenge. I'm going to pay you off."

"With bluff and blow?" demanded Ralph sarcastically.

Bemis leaned over and slapped Ralph's face.

"Don't you sa.s.s me!" he gritted out. "It won't be healthy for you."

"You're a mean coward!" said Ralph. "Give me a free show, and we'll see who is the better man."

"I'll show you something!" snapped Bemis venomously. "Do you know what we are going to do with you? I'm going to fix you, Ralph Fairbanks, so you will never crow over me--you'll never pull another lever."

"Jaw less--get into action," directed Ike Slump tartly.

"Where's the fixtures?"

"Here they are."

Ike reached over to a chair and picked up something that jangled. Ralph regarded the trap-like apparatus disclosed with some interest.

Bemis took it from the hand of his a.s.sociate.

"Do you know what this is?" he inquired of Ralph.

"I don't."

"It's a nutcracker, see?"

Ike grinned as if that was a big joke.

"You're the funniest fellow in the world, Mort!" he chuckled gleesomely.

The instrument Bemis displayed somewhat resembled a nutcracker. It opened and was operated by hand pressure. It had fine grooves. These tallied to the fingers on a human hand.

"They used that on the scabs, the time of the big railroad strike,"