THE PAY CAR ROBBER

Ralph Fairbanks sat at work on the task apportioned him by the general superintendent six hours after he had delivered the California fruit special "on time."

The young railroader went at the missing pay car case just as he started at anything he undertook--with ardor and intelligence. He lined up all the facts in order, he met Adair down the line at Maddox, and Zeph Dallas was with him.

By three o'clock in the afternoon Ralph knew all there was to gather up as to the details of the missing pay car. It was not much to know. No trace of it had been found. There were a dozen theories as to what had become of it. Two of Adair's helpers favored one looking to the bold running off of the car after being detached by a "borrowed" engine of the Midland Central, and were working along that line.

Adair told Ralph that he was anxious to get after the five men with whom Zeph Dallas had been making friends for a week or more. Their leader was Rivers, and there was no doubt that this crowd had worked on the pay car robbery.

As Zeph had tearfully narrated to Ralph when he had implored his aid, the crowd had fooled him completely. From the start they must have had an inkling as to his ident.i.ty. Working on that knowledge, as Zeph expressed it, they had simply "had fun with him."

The deceptive Rivers had left false telegrams purposely in Zeph's way.

He had got up fict.i.tious interviews with his confederates to which Zeph had listened, believing himself a shrewd eavesdropper.

They put up a plausible plan which diverted his investigations entirely from their real intentions, and this was how he never dreamed for a moment that they had the slightest hint as to the starting of the subst.i.tute pay car out of Rockton.

The day of that event they had sent Zeph on a fool errand to pretended accomplices at a desolate spot thirty miles from any railroad. Returning to the old camp of the conspirators the next morning foot sore and wearied, Zeph had found it utterly abandoned. The crowd had deserted him for good, and he was left "to hold the bag," as he ruefully expressed it.

There was "one great big thing" that Zeph had done, however, and Ralph encouragingly told him so. He had managed to get possession of papers and lists that gave the names and plans of the conspirators who were acting for the rival road, and also the cypher telegraphic code they used.

So valuable did Adair consider this information, that he declared it would not only result in proving where the real responsibility rested for the various loss and damage of late to the Great Northern, but he believed that when confronted with the proofs the Midland Central officials, rather than court legal proceedings would foot every dollar of the expensive bill run up by their spies, even to the pay car loss.

So, after telling Ralph that he should spend a day in consultation with the superintendent and others at Stanley Junction, and to advise him at once of any new discoveries of importance, the road officer left Ralph and Zeph hopefully to their own devices.

At exactly ten o'clock the next morning as the general superintendent and Adair sat in earnest consultation at headquarters. Glidden arrived in great haste with a telegram.

"A pink, sir," he reported to the head officer. "Was in cypher. From Fairbanks."

"h.e.l.lo!" commented Adair, rising from his chair interested. "That's good. He never wastes electricity unless he has something to tell."

"Why," almost shouted the superintendent, roused up to tremendous excitement, "he has found the missing pay car!"

"He beats me, and that's fine, quick work!" declared Adair. "I told you he was a genius, and I knew what I was about when I sent for him."

"Listen to this," continued the superintendent hastily: "Pay car found--north Eagle Pa.s.s. Smashed. Empty. Adair must come at once.'"

"I guess so," nodded the road detective with animation. "What a record: Roundhouse wiper, towerman, fireman, engineer, train dispatcher, and now beating the special road service right on its own grounds! Chief, where are you going to put Fairbanks next?"

"Something better and something soon," said the gratified superintendent. "He deserves the best."

"There's nothing better than chief dispatcher," declared old John Glidden, loyal to the core to the proud traditions of his calling. "You just keep Fairbanks right at my side--we're both happy and useful right here."

Adair waited for no regular train. A special locomotive took him down to Maddox, to find Ralph and Zeph awaiting him in a private room off the operator's office.

"Found the pay car, eh, Fairbanks?" challenged the road detective briskly.

"Yes, Mr. Adair--what was left of it."

"Knew you would, if anyone did. So I bungled? Well, I'm glad to learn what I don't know. Give us the details."

Ralph was brief and explicit. The first investigating party under Adair's direction had traversed all the southern cut offs. They had forgotten or neglected the one over which Ralph had made his sensational run with the California fruit special. It was no wonder that the division superintendent had considered it impossible, for at places the fruit special had ploughed up dirt and dead leaves matted down over the rails two feet thick.

At all events, recalling the obstruction of the chained ties, Ralph and Zeph had gone to the spot.

"That obstruction," explained Ralph, "had certainly been placed before the theft of the pay car, antic.i.p.atory of what was planned to happen."

"Yes, it looks that way," nodded Adair thoughtfully.

"The car must have run on strong gravity to the b.u.mper, and went over the edge of the roadway at that point. She struck down over one hundred feet, breaking through the tops of trees. The snow later covered all traces of the descent. You will find the car lying near an old abandoned quarry house, a mere heap of kindling."

"And the safes and the money parrels?"

"Not a trace. However, Mr. Adair, it is no easy way to get out of the ravine with those stout heavy bank safes, and I advise that a guard be left in the vicinity."

"You have solved the mystery of the pay car, Fairbanks," said the road officer in a gratified tone--"now to find out what has become of the plunder."

"You will remain here, Mr. Adair?" inquired Ralph.

"Until I have made a thorough investigation and placed my men, certainly," responded the detective.

"I wish to put in a few hours at a side line investigation, if you please, and may not see you again until tomorrow, and I wish to take Dallas with me."

"All right," said Adair. He looked as if he would like to know more of Ralph's plans, but he had too much confidence in his young helper to question him.

As to Ralph, he had a decided reason for not explaining to the road officer. Glen Palmer was on his mind strongly, and a good many strange things that Glen had told him had impressed him with the conviction that the grandfather of the unfortunate Glen had been a pretty important element in the plots of the conspirators all along the line.

Zeph, while at the camp of the plotters, had heard considerable they did not intend him to hear. They had spoken of the Palmers--grandfather and grandson, many times.

"From what they said," declared Zeph, "I could easily decide that they discovered old Palmer, knowing him to be just the man they could use.

Without Glen knowing it, they got him away from home several times. They played on his simple vanity, making him believe they would later get him a great job with a big railroad. Glen was heart-broken when he discovered this. The crowd finally got his grandfather in captivity.

Glen tried to rescue him, and they caged him up, too."

"I begin to understand the circ.u.mstances under which the poor fellow sent those two warning messages," murmured Ralph. "Thief or no thief, he was loyal to me."

"I think it, too, and I think he could tell you lots," said Zeph. "I know his grandfather could. Both escaped finally, but where they went I don't know."

Ralph knew at least where Glen was. He remembered the town at which his arrest had been reported. It was less than twenty miles distant, and they caught a fast freight. Ralph went at once to the workhouse of the thriving little town. He inquired for Glen Palmer, but was informed that the following day was visitor's day, and that the rules were never broken except on special orders from the superintendent, who was absent at present.

"I will call tomorrow, then," said Ralph. "I wish, though, you would see Glen Palmer and tell him so. He may have some important message for me."

"You guessed it, sure enough," reported the prison guard, returning with a folded fragment of a note. "Young Palmer was frantic to know you was here, and says please don't forget and come tomorrow."

"I will certainly be here, or some one representing me," promised Ralph, and then he read the note, which ran:

"I am terribly anxious to know if my grandfather arrived safely at the home of my friend, Gregory Drum, at Ironton, where I sent him a few days ago."

Ralph and his companion went on to Ironton at once. They located the Drum residence, but did not find its proprietor at home. His wife, a thin, nervous lady, told how a few days before an old man named Palmer had come there, saying that his son was well known to her husband, which the lady believed to be true.