Ralph looked up, as with prodigious whistlings a single locomotive came tearing down the rails, took the outer main track, and was lost to sight.
Not two minutes later a second described the same maneuver. Ralph arose, wondering somewhat.
Looking down the rails towards the depot, he noticed unusual activity in the vicinity of the roundhouse.
A good many hands were gathered at the turntable, as if some excitement was up. Then a third engine came down the rails rapidly, and Ralph noticed that the main "out" signal was turned to "clear tracks."
As the third locomotive passed him, he noticed that the engineer strained his sight ahead in a tensioned way, and the fireman piled in the coal for the fullest pressure head of steam.
Ralph made a start for home, reached a crossroad, and was turning down it when a new shrill series of whistles directed his attention to locomotive No. 4. It came down the rails in the same remarkable and reckless manner as its recent predecessors.
"Something's up!" decided Ralph, with an uncontrollable thrill of interest and excitement-"I wonder what?"
CHAPTER V-OPPORTUNITY
The boy turned and ran back to the culvert crossing just as the fourth locomotive whizzed past the spot.
He waved his hand and yelled out an inquiry as to what was up, but cab and tender flashed by in a sheet of steam and smoke.
He recognized the engineer, however. It was gruff old John Griscom, and in the momentary glimpse Ralph had of his hard, rugged face he looked grimmer than ever.
Ralph marveled at his presence here, for Griscom had the crack run of the road, the 10.15, driven by the biggest twelve-wheeler on the line, and was something of an industrial aristocrat. The locomotive he now propelled was a third-class freight engine, and had no fireman on the present occasion so far as could be seen.
Ralph knew enough about runs, specials and extras, to at once comprehend that something very unusual had happened, or was happening.
Whatever it was, extreme urgency had driven out this last locomotive, for Griscom wore his off-duty suit, and it was plain to be seen had not had time to change it.
Ralph's eyes blankly followed the locomotive. Then he started after it. Five hundred feet down the rails, a detour of a gravel pit sent the tracks rounding to a stretch, below which, in a clump of greenery, half a dozen of the firemen and engineers of the road had their homes.
With a jangle and a shiver the old heap of junk known as 99 came to a stop. Then its whistle began a series of tootings so shrill and piercing that the effect was fairly ear-splitting.
Ralph recognized that they were telegraphic in their import. Very often, he knew, locomotives would sound a note or two, slow up just here to take hands down to the roundhouse, but old Griscom seemed not only calling some one, but calling fiercely and urgently, and adding a whole volume of alarm warnings.
Ralph kept on down the track and doubled his pace, determined now to overtake the locomotive and learn the cause of all this rush and commotion.
As he neared 99, he discerned that the veteran engineer was hustling tremendously. Usually impassive and exact when in charge of the superb 10.15, he was now a picture of almost irritable activity.
Having thrown off his coat, he fired in some coal, impatiently gave the whistle a further exercise, and leaning from the cab window yelled lustily towards the group of houses beyond the embankment.
Just as Ralph reached the end of the tender, he saw emerging from the shaded path down the embankment a girl of twelve. He recognized her as the daughter of jolly Sam Cooper, the fireman.
She was breathless and pale, and she waved her hand up to the impatient engineer with an agitated:
"Was you calling pa, Mr. Griscom?"
"Was I calling him!" growled the gruff old bear-"did he think I was piping for the birds?"
"Oh, Mr. Griscom, he can't come, he-"
"He's got to come! It's life and death! Couldn't he tell it, when he saw me on this crazy old wreck, and shoving up the gauge to bursting point. Don't wait a second-he's got to come!"
"Oh, Mr. Griscom, he's in bed, crippled. Ran into a scythe in the garden, and his ankle is cut terrible. Mother's worried to death, and he won't be able to take the regular run for days and days."
Old Griscom stormed like a pirate. He glared down the tracks towards the roundhouse. Then he shouted ferociously:
"Tell Evans to come, then-not a minute to lose!"
"Mr. Evans has gone for the doctor, for pa," answered the girl.
Griscom nearly had a fit. He flung his big arms around as if he wanted to smash something. He glanced at his watch, and slapped his hand on the lever with an angry yell.
"Can't go back for an extra!" Ralph heard him shout, "and what'll I do? Rot the road! I'll try it alone, but-"
He gave the lever a jerk, the wheels started up. Ralph thought he understood the situation. He sprang to the step.
"Get out-no junketing here-life and death-Hello, Fairbanks!"
"Mr. Griscom," spoke Ralph, "what's the trouble?"
"Trouble-the shops at Acton are on fire, not a locomotive within ten miles, and all the transfer freight hemmed in."
Ralph felt a thrill of interest and excitement.
"Is that so?" he breathed. "I see-they need help?"
"I guess so, and quick. Out of the way!"
The old engineer hustled about the cab, set the machinery whizzing at top-notch speed, and seized the fire shovel.
"Mr. Griscom," cried Ralph, catching on by a sort of inspiration, "let me-let me do that."
"Eh-what-"
Ralph drew the shovel from his unresisting hands.
"You can't do both," he insisted-"you can't drive and fire. Just tell me what to do."
"Can you shovel coal?"
"I can try."
"Here, not that way-" as Ralph opened the furnace door in a clumsy manner. "That's it, more-hustle, kid! That'll do. No talking, now."
Griscom sprang to the cushion. For two minutes he was absorbed, looking ahead, timing himself, reading the gauge, in a fume and sweat, like a trained greyhound eager to strike the home stretch.
Suddenly he ran his head and shoulders far past the window sill, and uttered one of his characteristic alarm yells.
"Rot the road!" he shouted. "No flags!"
He reached over for the tool box, and slammed up its cover. He pawed over a dozen or more soiled flags of different colors, snatched up two, shook out their white folds, and then, as the speeding engine nearly jumped the track at a switch, flopped back the lever.
"Set them," he ordered.
In his absorbed excitement he seemed to forget the dangerous mission he was setting, for a novice, Ralph did not ask a question. He threw in some coal, then taking the flags in one hand, he crept out through the forward window.
It was his first experience in that line. The swishing wind, the teeter-like swaying of the engine, the driving hail of cinders, all combined to daunt and confuse him, but he clung to the engine rail, gained the pilot, set one flag in its socket, then with a stooping swing the other, and felt his way back to the cab, flushed with satisfaction, but glad to feel a safe footing once more.
Griscom glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, with a growl that might mean approbation or anything else.
"Fire her up," he ordered.
Ralph had little leisure during the twenty miles run that followed-he did not know till afterwards that they covered it in exactly thirty minutes, a remarkable record for old 99.
As they whirled by stations he noticed a crowd at each. As they rounded the last timbered curve to the south