just about to start this spectacle through the public streets of Stanley Junction when Ralph appeared. The young fireman brushed them aside quickly, removed the adornments from the horses and wagon, sprang to the vehicle, threw the sign overboard, and, lifting up the unconscious driver, placed him out of view under the wagon seat. As he did so, Ralph noticed the taint of liquor on the breath of the country lad.
“Too bad,” he murmured to himself. “This doesn’t look right—more like a piece of malice or mischief. Stand back, there!”
Ralph took up the reins, and also seized the whip. Many of the crowd he had known as school chums, and most of them drew back shamefacedly as he appeared.
There were four or five regular young loafers, 21 however, who led the mob. Among them Ralph recognized Ted Evans, a son of the fireman he had encountered at the roundhouse two days previous. With him was a fellow named Hemp Gaston, an old associate of Mort Bemis.
“Hold on, there!” sang out Gaston, grabbing the bridles of the horses. “What you spoiling our fun for?”
“Yes,” added Ted Evans, springing to the wagon step and seizing Ralph’s arm. “Get off that wagon, or we’ll pull you off.”
Ralph swung the fellow free of the vehicle with a vigorous push.
“See here, you interfere with my boy and I’ll take a hand in this affair myself,” growled Jim Evans, advancing from the crowd of men.
“You’ll whip me first, if you do,” answered one of them. “This is a boys’ squabble, Jim Evans, and don’t you forget it.”
“Humph! he struck my boy.”
“Then let them fight it out.”
“Yes,” shouted young Evans angrily, “come down here and show that you are no coward.”
“Very well,” said Ralph promptly. “There’s one for you!”
Ralph Fairbanks had acted in a flash on an impulse. He had leaped from the wagon, dealt young Evans one blow and sent him half-stunned 22 to the ground. Regaining the wagon he drove quickly into the street before his astonished enemies could act any further.
“Poor fellow,” said Ralph, looking at the lad in the wagon. “Now, what am I ever going to do with him?”
Ralph reflected for a moment or two. Then he started in the direction of home. He was sleepy and tired out, and he realized that the present episode might interfere with some of his plans for the day, but he was a whole-hearted, sympathetic boy and could not resist the promptings of his generous nature.
The young fireman soon reached the pretty little cottage that was his home, so recently rescued from the sordid clutches of old Gasper Farrington. He halted the team in front of the place and entered the house at once.
“Here I am, mother,” he said cheerily.
Mrs. Fairbanks greeted him with a smile of glad welcome.
“I was quite anxious about you when I heard of the wreck, Ralph,” she said with solicitude. He had not been home since that happening.
“It was not a wreck, mother,” corrected Ralph. Then he briefly recited the incidents of the hold-up.
“It seems as though you were destined to meet 23 with all kinds of danger in your railroad life,” said the widow. “You were delayed considerably.”
“Yes,” answered Ralph, “we had to remove the landslide debris. That took us six hours and threw us off our schedule, so we had to lay over at Dover all day yesterday. One pleasant thing, though.”
“What is that, Ralph?”
“The master mechanic congratulated me this morning on what he called, ‘saving the train.’ ”
“Which you certainly did, Ralph. Why, whose wagon is that in front of the house?” inquired Mrs. Fairbanks, observing the vehicle outside for the first time.
Ralph explained the circumstances of his rescue of the vehicle to his mother.
“What are you going to do with the farmer’s boy?” she inquired.
“I want to bring him in the house until he recovers.”
“Very well, I will make up a bed on the lounge for him,” said the woman. “It is too bad, poor fellow! and shameful—the mischief of those men at the hotel.”
Ralph carried the farmer’s boy into the house. Then he ate his breakfast. After the meal was finished, he glanced at his watch. 24
“I shall have to lose a little sleep, mother,” he said. “I am anxious to help the poor fellow out, and I think I see a way to do it.”
The young fireman had noticed a small blank book under the cushion of the wagon seat. He now inspected it for the first time. All of its written pages were crossed out except one. This contained a list of names of storekeepers in Stanley Junction.
Ralph drove to the store first named in the list. Within two hours he had delivered all of the apples. It seemed that the storekeepers named in the account book ordered certain fruits and vegetables regularly from the owner of the team, the farmer himself coming to town to collect for the same twice each month.
When Ralph got back home he unhitched the horses, tied them up near the woodshed, and fed them from a bag of grain he found under the wagon seat.
“What is this, I wonder?” he said, discovering a small flat parcel under the wagon seat. The package resembled a store purchase of some kind, so, for safe keeping, Ralph placed it inside the shed.
His mother had gone to visit a sick neighbor. The farmer boy was sleeping heavily.
“Wake me before the boy leaves,” he wrote on 25 a card, leaving this for his mother on the kitchen table. Then, pretty well tired out, Ralph went to bed.
It was late in the afternoon when he awoke. He went down stairs and glanced into the sitting room.
“Why, mother,” he exclaimed, “where is the farmer boy?”
“He left two hours ago, Ralph.”
“Is that so? Then why didn’t you wake me up? I left a card for you on the kitchen table.”
“I did not find it,” said the widow, and then a search revealed the card where the wind had blown it under the stove.
“What did the boy say?” inquired Ralph.
“He told me his name was Zeph Dallas. I talked to him about his misfortunes of the morning, and he broke down and cried. Then he went out to the wagon. He found an account book there, and said you must have delivered his load for him, and that he would never forget your kindness.”
“There was a package in the wagon,” said Ralph.
“He spoke of that, and said some one must have stolen it.”
“You are sure he didn’t find it later?” inquired 26 Ralph. “It was in the woodshed, where I placed it for safe keeping.”
Ralph went out to the shed, and found the package where he had left it. He returned to the house with it, ate a hurried meal, and hastened down town. He learned that Zeph had called at several stores. The farmer boy appeared to have discovered Ralph’s interest in his behalf, and had driven home.
“I wonder what there is in the package?” mused Ralph, when he again reached the cottage. “I had better open it and find out.”
The young fireman was quite startled as he untied the parcel and glanced at its contents. The package contained two bolts of silk, and the tags on them bore the name of the firm which, Ralph had learned at Dover, had shipped the goods stolen from the slow freight two nights previous.
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