"If it should be the east freight stalled," suggested Ralph to the conductor, "you needn't worry about those hungry children in the coaches, and that baby you told about wanting milk."

"No, the east freight is a regular provision train," put in the fireman. "If we could reach her, we'd have our pick of eatables."

It was two hours later, and things had quieted down about the snowed-in train, when a series of shouts greeted Ralph, Fogg and the conductor, seated on a broken log around the fire at the side of the tracks.

"What's this new windfall!" exclaimed Fogg.

"More signals," echoed the conductor, staring vaguely.

"Human signals, then," supplemented Ralph. "Well, here's a queer arrival."

Five persons came toppling down the side of the embankment, in a string. They were tied together at intervals along a rope. All in a mix-up, they landed helter-skelter in the snow of the cut. They resembled Alpine tourists, arrived on a landslide.

"Why, it's Burton, fireman of the east freight!" shouted the conductor, recognizing the first of the five who picked himself up from the snow.

"That's who!" answered the man addressed, panting hard. "We're stalled about a mile down the cut. Coal given out, no steam. Saw your fire, didn't want to freeze to death quite, so----"

"We guessed that you were the Overland," piped in a fresh, boyish voice. "Packed up some eatables, and here we are. How do you like my new railroad rocket signals, Engineer Fairbanks?" and Archie Graham, the young inventor, picked himself up from the snow.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

CONCLUSION

One hour after daybreak the vicinity of the s...o...b..und Overland Express resembled a picture, rather than a forlorn blockade.

The lone adventurers who had made the trip from the stalled freight had been a relief party indeed. The engineer was a railroader of long experience, and he had thought out the dilemma of the refugees. He and his companions had broken open a freight car and had brought each a good load. There was coffee, sugar, crackers, canned meats, a ham, and, what was most welcome to anxious mothers and their babes, a whole crate of condensed milk.

There never was a more jolly breakfast than that aboard the s...o...b..und coaches. There was plenty to eat and to spare all around, and plenty more at the stalled freight, everybody knew. In front of the engine many a merry jest went the rounds, as the train crews and some of the pa.s.sengers broiled pieces of succulent ham on the end of pointed twigs.

"You see, it was this way," Archie Graham explained to the young engineer of No. 999. "I was just watching a chance for washouts or snowstorms to get on a train diving into the danger. Those red bombs are my invention. I shoot them from a gun. I can send them a mile or gauge them to go fifty feet. They ignite when they drop, and by sending out a lot of them they are bound to land somewhere near the train you aim at. The engineer is bound to take notice, just as you did, of the glare, and that's where they beat the fusees and save the running back of a brakeman."

"Archie," said Ralph honestly, "I believe you're going to hit some real invention some time."

"I helped out some with my patent rocket signals this time," declared Archie.

"You did, my lad," observed Fogg with enthusiasm, "and the pa.s.sengers know all about it, and they've mentioned you in a letter they're getting up to the company saying how they appreciate the intelligence--that's Fairbanks--the courage, ahem! that's me, and the good-heartedness, that's all of us, of the two train crews."

By the middle of the afternoon a snow plow opened up the line from Rockton to the stalled train. It was not until two mornings later, however, that the main line was open and Ralph and Fogg got back to Stanley Junction.

Archie came on the same train. Ralph asked him up to the house, but the young inventor said he wanted the quiet of his hotel room to work on his signal rocket idea, which he declared would amount to something yet.

The young engineer had scarcely got in the house after the warm, cheerful greeting of his anxious mother, when Zeph Dallas put in an appearance.

Zeph was looking exceedingly prosperous. He wore a new, nicely-fitting suit of clothes, a modest watch and chain, and was quite dignified and subdued, for him.

"When you've had your breakfast, Ralph," he said, "I've got something to tell you."

"Yes," nodded Ralph, "I'm expecting to hear a pretty long story from you, Zeph."

The young engineer hurried his breakfast and soon joined Zeph in the sitting-room.

"Say, Ralph," at once observed his friend, "you've done some big things in your time, but the biggest thing you ever did was when you saw to it that Jim Evans and Ike Slump, and most of all, that fellow, Morris, were held as prisoners by Adair, the road detective."

"I fancied they deserved locking up," remarked Ralph.

"There would have been a murder if you hadn't seen to it," declared Zeph. "I've a story to tell that would make your hair stand on end, but it would take a book to tell it all."

"I'm here to listen, Zeph," intimated Ralph.

"Yes, but I'm due to meet Mr. Adair at the jail. He's sent Evans and Slump back to the prison they escaped from. I hurried on here from the Fordham cut purposely to tell him what I wanted done with Morris."

"I say, Zeph," rallied the young railroader, "you seem to have a big say in such things for a small boy."

"That's all right," declared Zeph good-naturedly; "I'm all here, just the same, and I'm here for a big purpose. In a word, not to mystify you, Ralph, for you know only half of the story, I was hired by Marvin Clark, the son of the Middletown & Western Railroad president, to do all I've done, and I have been royally paid for it."

"Then you must have done something effective," observed Ralph.

"Clark thought so, anyway. I'll try and be brief and to the point, so that you'll understand in a nutsh.e.l.l. You know Marvin Clark and Fred Porter and the two Canaries?"

The young engineer nodded a.s.sentingly.

"Well, as I say, I ran across Clark accidentally in my stray wanderings. He and a sickly boy named Ernest Gregg were living in a fixed-over building at Fordham Spur. I seemed to be just the person Clark was waiting for. He hired me to do some work for him. He was planning to get the poor boy, Gregg, his rights."

"Yes, I know about that," observed Ralph.

"Then if you do, I can hurry over things. It seems that when he began to look up Gregg's affairs, he found out that Ernest had a strange hermit of a grandfather, named Abijah Gregg. Ernest's father was an only son. About five years ago the old man discovered a terrible forgery in which he was robbed of over ten thousand dollars. He had reason to believe that Ernest's father and a man named Howard were responsible for it. He disowned his son and all his family, and a month later Ernest's father died, leaving his son a disowned and homeless outcast."

"And what became of Howard?" inquired the interested Ralph.

"He disappeared. Old Gregg became soured at all humanity after that,"

narrated Zeph; "the more so because he had a profligate nephew who turned out bad. This was the man in jail here now."

"Lord Lionel Montague--Morris?"

"Yes, Morris robbed the old man, who became afraid of him. The old man tried to hide away from everybody. In his wanderings he picked up the two Canaries and settled down at the lonely place at Fordham Cut. He was very rich, partly paralyzed, and intended to leave his fortune to the state, rather than have any relative benefit by it. Well, Marvin Clark, the splendid, unselfish fellow, got a clew to all this. He located old Abijah Gregg. He spent just loads of money following down points, until he discovered that the man Howard was a broken-down invalid in New Mexico. Clark was sick himself for a month, and that was why Fred Porter did not hear from him."

"And later?" asked Ralph.

"I ran across Porter and brought him to the Spur about a month ago. He is there now. Well, Clark found out positively that Ernest's father never had a thing to do with forgery. It had been really committed by Howard and this villain, Morris. He got in touch with Howard in New Mexico, who was a dying man. He found him anxious to make what reparation he could for a wicked deed. Old Gregg would not go to New Mexico. Howard could only live where the air was just right for him.

The physicians said that if he ever went to any other climate, the change of atmosphere would kill him. With plenty of money at his command, Clark arranged it all. The New Mexico doctors got a tank that held an artificial air, and Clark arranged so that Howard could come east in a special car."

"And the first tourist car that you ran empty to the Spur?" inquired Ralph.

"Why, we knew that Morris was trying every way to locate and annoy his uncle. We thought that maybe he had got onto our plans about Howard.

We ran the dummy car to see if we were being watched. Don't you see, that if Morris had succeeded in smashing the gla.s.s air tank, Howard would have died before he could tell his story to old Mr. Gregg."