CHAPTER VI
TOUCH AND GO
Whitey Malone was on his face, and before he could raise his head and shriek his objection to the treatment accorded him by Zeph Dallas, Ralph sprang astride him and held him down. As Whitey struggled the young dispatcher grabbed his cap from the ground and thrust it into the fellow’s mouth. Then he twisted his hands behind him and held the muffled rascal secure.
Ralph was about to use his own handkerchief to bind Whitey’s wrists when he remembered that it was monogrammed and might offer a clue to his identity when the affair was over. Therefore he thrust his hand into the side pocket of his captive’s coat.
There was a bandanna there. When Ralph pulled it out of the pocket something else came with it—something white that lay on the flagstone while Ralph lashed Whitey’s wrists. When this job was done neatly and to his satisfaction the young dispatcher picked up the fallen article and rose to his feet.
Whitey Malone was groaning and struggling. His cap completely muffled his voice. He managed to roll over on his back, but he could not spit out the cap.
Ralph looked scrutinizingly at the thing he had drawn from the man’s pocket. It was a soiled envelope, sealed. It was not bulky and there was no address upon it as far as Ralph could see. He thrust it into an inner pocket and then turned toward the door of the house into which Zeph Dallas had so recklessly plunged.
Zeph had instructed his friend to call the police if a row was started upstairs. But Ralph did not want to draw the police into any investigation of this affair. He did not know yet whether this was railroad business or not. And, in any event, he was sure that publicity would do no good.
But he feared for Zeph’s safety. The fellow was so reckless! With another glance at the prostrate Whitey, the dispatcher sprang up the steps and opened the unlocked door. There was but a faint glimmer of light in the hall and that from the floor above.
Where was Zeph? Ralph dared not utter a sound. He closed the door behind him carefully and made sure that it was tightly shut. Then he began to grope about the lower hall of the house.
He had brought the spoke of a wheel with him, and the grip of it gave him confidence. But he did not want to pitch upon his friend by mistake. He found no trace of Zeph, however. He believed the fellow must have ventured immediately up the stairs.
Above, Ralph heard the murmur of voices. He started up the flight, stepping close to the wall so that the stair steps would not squeak. This was an old and ramshackle building and every beam in it cracked when the wind blew.
Clinging to the wall, Ralph finally came so near the head of the flight that he could see across the small hall at the top and into a big room, the door of which was more than ajar. This loft seemed to be poorly furnished and it certainly was poorly lighted.
When the man had come to the top of the stairs with the hand lamp, he had brought the only lamp in the place. Now it stood upon a rickety table near one wall and he and another man were seated beside it.
Surely the second person was not Zeph Dallas! And yet Ralph could not see any sign of Zeph. He stepped up on the landing with great care, and looked into the room. There was absolutely nobody there but the pair at the table.
Suddenly one of these moved his chair—scraped it back harshly. He turned to look at the open door.
“What’s the matter with you, Whitey?” he growled out. “Why don’t you come up here? Did you get what I sent you for?”
Ralph held his breath and remained perfectly still. He had no thought of answering for Whitey Malone.
But startlingly, though in muffled tone, a gruff voice said just above him: “What’s that you want? I dunno wot you sent me for. Where’d you send me?”
The fellow at the table jumped up with an ejaculation more forceful than polite. “That drunken bum! What’s he been doing, do you suppose, Grif?”
“You should not have trusted him, Andy,” returned the second man. “I told you what he was.”
The first speaker strode heavily toward the door. Ralph realized that he was about to be discovered. And he knew something else, too: That was, that his reckless friend, Zeph Dallas, was on the next flight above, and had sought to imitate Whitey Malone’s voice.
“Nice mess I’m in,” thought the young train dispatcher.
He crouched, but gripping the spoke, his only weapon. If it came to a fight, he purposed to have the best of the argument—and have it quick. He was sure he knew who this fellow approaching the door was. The other man did not have to repeat his name.
“Whitey! what the dickens is the matter with you?” called the man. “You know what I sent you for. Didn’t you see Perrin?”
Ralph started. Perrin was a name he knew well. Jim Perrin was an officer of the shopmen’s union. The union had an agreement with the Great Northern which ran well into the next year. That was one reason why the better element of union labor on the road would not discuss a strike at this time.
But, to Ralph’s mind, Jim Perrin was a sly and unfaithful fellow. He had a bad reputation in the neighborhood where he lived. He drank and gambled and had other habits that were inexcusable.
If there was a secret association between Jim Perrin and these men—especially with this fellow approaching the door——
Ralph was thinking of this; but involuntarily his arm went up—the arm, the hand of which gripped the spoke of the wheel. He poised the club. And just then, as the man’s head was thrust out of the doorway like a turtle’s out of its shell, that crazy Zeph yelled from above:
“Hit him, boy! Hit him!”
It startled Ralph so that he made a fumble of it. While he hesitated the man drew back his head with a cry of rage, and the next moment he produced a pistol and thrust it into the hall!
He could not have aimed at either of the young fellows; but both of them were startled. It was touch and go—the bullet might find its billet in either of their bodies if the man fired.
“Who’s there?” he yelled.
Ralph sprang half way down the stairs. He heard Zeph going up the other flight on the jump. The man yelled again for his comrade to aid him in the chase.
Before Ralph reached the lower door he heard a window smashed above and knew that Zeph Dallas had found a fire escape. He tore open the outer door of the house and bounded through. The faint lamplight from above must have revealed his figure, for Zeph shouted:
“Out of the way, below! Stand aside!”
He had come down the fire escape ladder on the run. There was no ladder to the ground, of course, and he swung from the lower platform to drop.
Ralph, hearing the men coming down the lower flight of stairs, turned and banged to the outer door and held it. The men tried to turn the knob, but the young train dispatcher had a grip of iron.
“All right, boy!” shrilled Zeph, as he dropped. “Where’s that chap I overturned?”
“He’s thrashing on his back there,” said Ralph coolly. “Let him alone. Be ready to run.”
“That’s the thing I’m most ready for,” admitted Zeph. “Come on!”
Ralph leaped away from the door and followed his friend up the alley. They were a block away in two minutes, and were not followed. Ralph overtook Zeph and dragged him down to a walk.
“Gee!” exclaimed Dallas, “that was a close call——”
“And a silly one,” declared the train dispatcher. “Another of the times when you jumped without looking. You had no business in that house.”
“Yes, I had. Wasn’t that Andy McCarrey?”
“It was.”
“Well, I’ll know him again then. I never saw him before.”
“If that is all you wanted,” said Ralph with some scorn, “I could have pointed him out to you a dozen times a day. He doesn’t hide himself.”
“Huh! He was hiding away to-night, I guess.”
“Perhaps. But it did you no good to let him know that his actions were observed and his private messenger followed.”
“Oh! You mean that Whitey?”
“That is whom I mean.”
“I bet he had something on him we ought to have got hold of,” said Zeph, with sudden excitement. “Did you hear what McCarrey said? And was that Jim Perrin he meant, do you suppose?”
“Like enough,” said Ralph soberly. “I am afraid Jim is into this strike scheme with both feet.”
“The union ought to bounce him.”
“He has a lot of friends. But perhaps if it could be proved that he had a secret agreement, or understanding, with McCarrey——”
“Wish we’d searched that Whitey,” growled out Zeph, shaking his head mournfully.
“If you didn’t always jump into a thing without first looking!” exclaimed Ralph. “Well, where are you stopping?”
“I’ve got a room on Pearl Street. You know the place? But I didn’t think of sleeping to-night.”
“And you won’t, after that milk and mince pie and the acrobatic activities you have just indulged in,” said Ralph, chuckling. “I’ll go over to the room with you. We can talk there. I’ve got something to show you.”
“Huh?” questioned Zeph, curiously.
In five minutes they reached the poorly furnished rooming-house in which Zeph was usually sheltered when he came to Rockton. It seemed as though he had a horror of living in good quarters, or as ordinarily respectable people lived.
“You surely are foolish, Zeph,” declared Ralph. “There’s a good bed and room at your disposal at our house. Mother was only speaking of it this evening. And yet you prefer a ranch like this.”
“As I told you, I never know what sort of a mess I may be getting into. Don’t want to make your mother trouble. Couldn’t think of doing more than coming to Sunday dinner and eating chicken.”
“That’s a promise,” agreed Ralph, smiling. “I’ll order a pair of chickens from the butcher in the morning.”
“Now, what’s the big idea?” asked Zeph, softly, closing his room door after having pulled the electric light chain to illuminate the place.
Ralph looked at him grimly. “Yes,” he said, “Whitey had been on an errand for McCarrey, and probably to Jim Perrin’s house. He was bringing some message, or the like, from Jim.”
“You’re guessing,” said Zeph. “We ought to have searched Whitey, as I said.”
Ralph drew out the sealed envelope that he had taken from Whitey Malone’s pocket with his bandanna. He held it out to Zeph.
“I guess this is what Whitey carried,” he said quietly.
“Gee, you did search him!” exclaimed the other happily. “You smart kid!”
“The luck of fools,” rejoined Ralph, with some disdain. “If it is anything of importance I can’t accept praise any more than you can.”
But Zeph was already tearing open the envelope.