Gasper Farrington was not having a very happy time of it. Ralph decided this that morning, as he noticed the magnate pa.s.s on the other side of the street.

Farrington looked bent, old, and troubled. He had sustained a total loss at the factory fire. His tricky methods were becoming known to the public. He was losing the respect of people. This he realized, and showed it both in bearing and face.

Ralph was thinking about all this about three o'clock in the afternoon, when the depot master's messenger came up the tower ladder. He had a pocketful of mail.

"Postal card for you, Fairbanks," he said.

Ralph took the card and went to the window to inspect it. The postal was blurred over and wrinkled, back and front. It looked as if it had been posted after being wetted by snow or rain, or in some stage of its transmission had fallen into a mess of wet dirt.

Its address was clear enough. It bore a railway mail postmark. On its reverse side the letters had run with the moisture.

"From Van," said Ralph, setting himself the difficult task of deciphering the blurred lines. "I know his handwriting, and it is signed 'V.' It was written in a hurry, that looks certain. What has he to say?"

Ralph conned the imperfect message over and over. After many interruptions, at the end of fully half an hour's careful study, these were the only coherent words he could formulate from the blurred scrawl:

"----hurry--and important. Don't miss telling--Slump--Bemis--Wednesday evening--safe--bank shipment--express--found out, and special freight--sure to be there--not later--near South Dover--don't delay a minute--will soon--back at Stanley Junction."

"What is he trying to tell me?" murmured Ralph in a puzzled and anxious way, after a third and fourth reading of the perplexing message.

He finally gave up guessing what the missing links in the postal screed might be.

"One thing is certain," reflected Ralph. "Wednesday evening something is on the books. The only other definite clew is South Dover. Does he mean for me to meet him there? Does he mean that Slump and Bemis are in that neighborhood? There is something about a bank shipment, express, and special freight. That means the railroad is somehow interested.

'Don't miss,' he writes, 'don't delay.' I won't," resolved Ralph keenly. "I wouldn't dare to, with such a word from Van. He has kept mum all along. Now that he does speak out, it certainly means something important."

Ralph thought things over for another half-hour, and then made up his mind what he would do.

He consulted the train schedules. Then he explained to Knight the necessity for a brief absence from duty. Without seeing Slavin, who had been sent for some report blanks to the depot, Ralph hurried home.

He told his mother about the postal card, dressed for the trip down the road, and caught the 4.30 train. Ralph was cordially invited to a seat in the cab by his loyal old friend, Engineer Griscom.

It was nearly dusk when the train reached South Dover. The place was only a name. There was not a building within a mile of the tool sheds and water tank that marked the spot.

The train slowed up for Ralph, who jumped off. He waved his hand to Griscom in adieu, and looked all about him.

South Dover was a switching and make-up point for the accommodation of Dover freight transfers. It had a dozen sidings and spurs. Freight coming into Dover on a north destination was switched here, and made ready to be taken up by through trains.

A man on a track bicycle had just set some lights. He whirled away towards Dover as Ralph stood looking about him.

No other human being was in sight. On a near siding stood half a dozen freight cars. Over on another track, near the water tower, stood a dead freight dummy.

"I can't make out much here," reflected Ralph. "No one in sight, no indication why Van mentioned the place."

He strolled over to the dead locomotive. Its tender was full of coal.

Ralph opened the furnace door. Everything was ready to kindle up, and the gauge showed a full water supply.

"I see," mused Ralph. "There is to be some switching, or a night run. I don't know how soon, though. Well, I'll hang around a bit. Something may develop."

Ralph walked down the short line of freights, casually inspecting the cars. As he came to the last one he dodged back in a very lively fashion.

Climbing up the embankment to the left were four persons. They had just emerged, it seemed, from thick underbrush lining the tracks.

Two of them were grown men--bearded, rough-looking fellows, resembling tramps.

The other two persons of the group had a prompt and distinct interest to Ralph. He at once recognized Ike Slump and Mort Bemis.

They were coming directly towards the freights. Ralph saw the danger of discovery.

The door of the car next to the last box freight was ajar.

Ralph leaped up into the car just as Ike Slump reached the top of the railroad embankment.

CHAPTER x.x.x--PRECIOUS FREIGHT

"Here we are!" almost immediately sounded out the tones of Mort Bemis.

"Glad of it," growled a gruff, breathless voice, unfamiliar to the listening Ralph. "We are about done out lugging these heavy crowbars over swamps and up this steep climb."

"Quick action, now," broke in Slump. "Here, give me a crowbar."

Ralph glided to the end of the box car he was in. He got near its little rear grated window.

Cautiously he looked out. Standing at the side of the track were Bemis and the two tramps. One of them held a crowbar. Another like it Ike was extending between the b.u.mpers. He knocked up the coupling pin connecting the rear car with the rest of the train.

Then he pried against the head of the pin, and forced it out. As it fell to the roadbed, he said:

"Watch up and down the tracks, Mort."

"Oh, there's no likelihood of anybody coming for three hours," retorted Bemis. "The express has pa.s.sed, and the signal man. The switching crew will keep snug and cozy in Hank Allen's restaurant up at Dover till schedule time, and that isn't till nine o'clock."

"Well, keep a sharp lookout, all the same," directed Ike. "I worked up this deal, and I reckon I have a right to boss the job. Come, my friend," to the tramp holding the other crowbar. "Pry on that left wheel. I'll take the right. Soon as we get momentum, you two give us a shoulder. Push, till I say let go. Understand?"

Ralph was momentarily bewildered. The quartette were about to separate the last car from the train. Why?

Ike and his helper got their crowbars each under a wheel. They budged the car, and got it fairly started. Then they yelled to the other two, and, dropping the crowbars, joined them in pushing the car along by sheer shoulder strength.

Ralph stared after them in doubt and concern. Then as they took a switch with rusted rails, he clearly saw their object.

The wheels of the detached freight car, striking a sharp slant, ran away from the persons who had started it up.

They stood still, gazing after the runaway. It moved on with sharpening speed, took a curve, and was shut out from view.

For fully two minutes afterwards, however, Ralph could catch the diminishing clatter of the fast revolving wheels. The others stood listening, too.

It was fairly dusk now. As the quartette approached the remaining cars, Ralph noticed that Mort Bemis was chuckling. Ike Slump's face wore an expression of intense satisfaction. They all halted as they reached the stationary freights.