"That's so, Bob Adair is the finest railroad detective in the world. If Zeph could line up under his guidance, he might make something practical of himself."

"I think he has really done just that."

"I am delighted to hear it," said Ralph, and watching the glowing embers in the grate in a dreamy fashion he mused pleasantly over his experience with the redoubtable Zeph, while his mother was busy tidying up the dining room.

It was a good deal of satisfaction for Ralph to recall Zeph Dallas to mind. Zeph, a raw country youth, had come to Stanley Junction in a whole peck of trouble. Ralph had always a helping hand for the unlucky or unfortunate. He became a good friend to Zeph and got him a place in the roundhouse. Zeph made a miserable failure of the job. The height of his ambition was to be a detective--like fellows he had read about.

Zeph finally landed, as he expressed it, with both feet. The son of a prominent railroad official became interested in hunting up the relatives of a forlorn little fellow named Gregg. He had plenty of money, and he hired Zeph to a.s.sist him. The latter showed that he had something in him, for his wit and energy not only located the wealthy relative of the orphan outcast, but upset the plots of a wicked schemer who was planning to rob the friendless lad of his rights.

"What did Zeph say about Mr. Adair, mother?" inquired Ralph, as Mrs.

Fairbanks again entered the sitting room.

"Nothing clear," she explained. "You know how Zeph delights in cuddling up his ideas to himself and looking and acting mysterious. He was very important as he hinted that Mr. Adair depended on him to 'save the day in a big case,' and he said a great deal about a 'rival railroad.'"

"Oh, did he, indeed?" murmured Ralph thoughtfully.

"Zeph told me to advise you, very secretly he put it, to look out for trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Particularly, he said, in the train dispatcher's department."

"Hm!" commented the young engineer simply, but his brow became furrowed with thought, and he reflected by spells quite seriously over the subject during the evening.

Fogg had forgotten all about his fears of the day previous when he reported at the roundhouse the next morning. He grinned at his young comrade with a particularly satisfied smirk on his face, and made the remark:

"You see before you, young man, a person full of the best chicken stew ever cooked in Stanley Junction. I say, Fairbanks, if you'd kind of slow up going past Bluff Point we might grab off enough more of those chickens to do for Sunday dinner."

"We? Don't include me in your disreputable pilferings, Mr. Fogg,"

declared Ralph, "you may get a bill for the two fowls you so boastingly allude to."

"Hey."

"Yes, indeed. In fact," continued Ralph with mock seriousness, "I don't know but what I may have a certain interest in enforcing its collection."

The young engineer recited the episode of the salvage sale of the chickens to Glen Palmer.

"Quite a windfall, that," commented Fogg. "Another fellow to thank his lucky stars that he ran up against Ralph Fairbanks. Sort of interested in this proposition myself. I can hardly imagine a finer prospect than running a chicken farm. Some day--"

The rhapsody of Fireman Fogg was cut short by the arrival of the schedule minute for getting up steam on the Overland racer. The bustle and energy of starting out on their regular trip made engineer and helper forget everything except the duties of the occasion. As they cleared the limits, however, and approached Bluff Point, Ralph watched out with natural curiosity, and Fogg remarked:

"Hope a few more chickens drop into the cab this morning."

Ralph slowed up slightly, they struck the bluff curve, and as they neared the scene of the freight wreck of the previous day he had a good view of the embankment where the two abandoned cars lay.

"Some one there," commented Fogg, his keen glance fixed on the spot.

"Yes, our young friend Glen Palmer and an old man. That must be the grandfather he talked about. They are very industriously at work."

The two persons whom Ralph designated were in the midst of the wreckage.

The old man was prying apart the netted compartment of the car and into this the boy was reaching. Near at hand was an old hand cart. It carried a great coop made of laths, and was half filled with fowls.

As the train circled the spot the boy below suspended his work and looked up. He seemed to recognize Ralph--or at least he knew his locomotive.

Ralph nodded and smiled and sounded three quick low toots from the whistle. This attracted the attention of the old man, who, standing upright, stared up at the train, posed like some heroic figure in plain view.

"I say!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Fogg with a great start.

The young engineer was similarly moved. In a flash he now traced the source of the puzzling suggestiveness of something familiar in the face of Glen Palmer the day before.

"Did you see him?" demanded Fogg.

"Yes," nodded Ralph.

"The old man--he's the one we saw with those two suspicious jailbird-looking fellows down the line yesterday."

CHAPTER IV

THE WIRE TAPPERS

"I don't like it," spoke Fogg with emphasis.

"Neither do I," concurred Ralph, "but I fancy the sensible thing to do is to make the best of it."

"While somebody else is making the worst of it!" grumbled the old fireman. "What brought up the confab with the old man at the terminus, anyway?"

"He just called me into the office and gave me the warning I have told you about."

"Queer--and pestiferous," said Fogg with vehemence. "I don't mind a fair and square fight with any man, but this stabbing in the back, tumbling into man traps in the dark and the like, roils me."

The Overland Express was on its return trip to Stanley Junction. Outside of the incident of the recognition of the old grandfather of Glen Palmer at the bluff curve, nothing had occurred to disturb a smooth, satisfactory run. Ralph and Fogg had discussed the first incident for quite some time after it had come up.

"I don't like the lineup," Fogg had a.s.serted. "Here one day you run across that old man in the company of two fellows we'd put in jail on mere suspicion. The next day we find the same old man cleaning up a wreck. Is that part of some villanious programme? Did some fine play send that chicken car down into the ditch, say?"

"Decidedly not," answered Ralph. "It doesn't look that way at all. Even if it did, I would vouch for young Palmer. He had no hand in it. I'll look this business up, though, when we get back home."

"H'm, you'd better," growled Fogg, and the fireman was back in his old surly suspicious mood all of the rest of the run.

Now, on the return trip, Fogg was brought up to a positive pitch of frenzy. It was just after their layover at Rockton when a messenger had come from the a.s.sistant superintendent to the roundhouse. The waiting hands there knew him. He approached Ralph, addressed him in a low confidential tone, and the two proceeded to headquarters together. It was the sentiment of the majority that the young engineer of the Overland Express was "on the carpet for a call down."

Ralph came back from the interview with the railway official with a serious but by no means downcast face. He parried the good natured raillery of his fellow workmen. It was not until he and his fireman were well out of Rockton on their return trip that he told Fogg what had taken place in the private office of the a.s.sistant superintendent.

There was not much to tell, but there was lots left to surmise, and worry over, according to Fogg's way of thinking. The railroad official had pledged Ralph to treat the interview as strictly confidential, except so far as his fireman was concerned. There was trouble brewing unmistakably, he told Ralph. The latter had weathered some pretty hard experiences with personal enemies and strikers in the past. The official wished to prepare him to battle some more of it in the future.