"Oh, don't let that worry you," and Slavin smiled coolly. "It was all arranged and understood by Bob Adair. Sherwin will go to jail all right. But Adair has fixed it so the minute he finds out what he is after and gives the word, Van Sherwin will have his liberty."

Ralph reflected seriously. He could find no fault with the unselfish ardor of his friends, that was sure. Their plan was a drastic one, but Van was smart, and probably knew what he was about.

"So," remarked Slavin, "you just get back to your work. Don't spoil our plans by interfering or trying to see Sherwin. Until I get that railroad job I'm promised I have nothing special to do. I'll put in the time in your service, see?"

"But," said Ralph, "Ike Slump knows Van."

"Does he? Very slightly, Sherwin says. And by the way, you didn't see Sherwin--close at hand?"

Ralph shook his head negatively.

"Only a special friend like you would be likely to recognize him, Sherwin says. He's fairly well disguised himself. Besides, he simply wants to get where he can watch and overhear Slump & Co. He won't try to chum with them."

Ralph went back to the switch tower more easy in his mind. He felt pretty tender towards his two loyal boy friends. Knowing Ike Slump's crude, blurting ways, he believed that if Farrington got balky, Ike would make some break that would be of advantage to Van.

He decided to tell his mother of this new phase in the case. Something startling, however, interrupted.

He had got ready for supper, and was entering the cozy little dining room, when Mrs. Fairbanks, at the window, called out suddenly:

"Come here, quick, Ralph."

"What is it, mother?" he asked.

"I fancied I heard some sounds like an explosion--and shouts," said Mrs.

Fairbanks. "There is a great glare over to the south. Look, Ralph."

She held aside the curtain so he could see.

"Why," cried Ralph, "it is a fire--a big fire, somewhere!"

"Farrington's old factory," said Mrs. Fairbanks.

CHAPTER XXIV--FIRE!

A great red glare covered the whole southern sky as Ralph reached the outer air.

"Mother is right, I guess," he spoke quickly--"it is certainly in the direction of the old factory."

The spur switch to the factory had been completed for some days. Ralph had that afternoon operated the levers opening the Farrington extension for the first time.

The new lessee of the factory, he understood, was going to use oil for fuel under some of the boilers. Among the twenty-odd cars switched off on the spur that afternoon Ralph had noticed as many as ten tank cars.

As Ralph ran on, he was surprised to note the extent of the glare. It spread from a point quite remote from the factory right up to the factory location.

He heard shouts in the distance, and scattered figures were thronging the landscape from all directions.

Ralph pa.s.sed a short timber reach. A vivid panorama now spread out before him.

A thousand yards ahead was the ravine. This the factory switch spur traversed.

Shooting up from the depths of the ravine for nearly a quarter of a mile were leaping, vivid tongues of flame.

Getting where he could command a view townwards obliquely across the ravine, Ralph realized just what had happened.

Outlined against the black sky there showed the framework of several freight cars. They were simply threads of flame now.

In some way the stationary freights had caught fire. The blaze had communicated to an oil tank. There had been an explosion, scattering the burning oil far and wide.

The cars had been blocked on an incline. Apparently the force of an explosion, or the fire, had dislodged or destroyed the blocking plank.

Some of the cars had broken free. Scudding down the ravine, they had lodged cinders and flame in all directions.

Coming to a curve, they had jumped the track. About two hundred feet from the factory they had gone down into a gravel pit, piling on top of each other.

The dry gra.s.s and shrubbery were on fire on both sides of the ravine for a full quarter of a mile back towards the town. The house Mrs. Davis had lived in was ablaze from cellar to garret.

Suddenly there was an awful roar. It was fortunate that Ralph was no nearer to the center of the explosion than he was.

The tanks that had crashed down into the gravel pit had formed a seething caldron of fire, and had now exploded.

So powerful was the concussion that Ralph was thrown flat. Getting erect again promptly, he saw a great flare of fire leap a hundred feet in the air.

This bore with it blazing planks, fragments of red-hot iron, and dazzling cinders.

They fell all over the landscape. They particularly enveloped the old factory. This, Ralph noticed, took fire instantly in a dozen different places.

"h.e.l.lo, Fairbanks!" cried a breathless pa.s.serby.

"Slavin?" said Ralph.

"Yes, keep on. There's hose and apparatus up at the factory. That's all there is worth saving, now."

"It will never be saved," p.r.o.nounced Ralph convincedly, but he joined Slavin on a run forward.

They were compelled to make a wide detour here and there of the ravine windings. Even great trees lining it had caught fire. The smoke was dense, and the burning cinders rained down upon them like hail.

"Hold on," ordered Ralph suddenly, but Slavin, catching sight of men and ladders in the vicinity of the factory, dashed on for the main center of excitement and activity.

Ralph had halted. He stood within about a hundred feet of the old house between Mrs. Davis' former home and the factory.

It was across this stretch, belonging to an old invalid widow, that Farrington had forced his right of way. The roof of the house was ablaze, So was one side of the building. Ralph had been checked by a wailing cry.

"Some one shut in there," he decided. "Even if it is only an animal, I must find out, and try to rescue it."

Ralph ran through the open rear doorway. A hall extended the length of the house. The outside blaze shone brightly into a side room, although it was filled with smoke pouring through a sash half burned away.