Ralph in the Switch Tower; Or, Clearing the Track

by Frank V. Webster

  CHAPTER VII--"YOUNG SLAVIN"

  Railroad Street to the right of Stanley Junction was a busy, respectablethoroughfare. There were a hotel, some restaurants, a store or two, andbeyond these some old residences.

  To the left, however, the street retrograded into second-hand stores,junk-shops, and the like, cheap eating places and boarding-houses, witha mixture of saloons.

  The lower class of railroad employees and the scum of the Junctionusually infested these places. At a restaurant called "The Signal"Ralph, from what he learned that day, felt he was pretty sure to getsome trace of Mort Bemis.

  He went by the place slowly once or twice, but could not discover Bemisin the crowded front room.

  Then he paced down the alley at the side of the building. Severallower-story apartments showed lighted up. He approached the open windowof one of these.

  As he did so, he noticed that directly under it lay some person asleep,rolled up in horse-blankets. Ralph nearly stumbled over thisindividual.

  He glanced into the room beyond the window. It held a table, at whichwas seated the object of his search.

  Mort Bemis was idly pawing over a greasy deck of playing cards. Heseemed to be awaiting the arrival of congenial company. Tilted back ina chair against the wall near by, a skullcap pulled down over his eyesand seemingly asleep, was a person Ralph did not recognize.

  Ralph now stepped cautiously over the sleeper at his feet so as not todisturb him, and went around to the front of the restaurant.

  It was run by a man named Prince, who at one time had conducted eatingcamps for railroad construction crews. He kept lodgers upstairs, andderived a good deal of revenue by letting out the rear rooms of thelower floor to card-players.

  Ralph entered the restaurant and passed through a curtained doorway atone side. Prince, at the cashier's desk, gave him a keen look, but tookhim for some new recruit to the crowd who infested the rear rooms.

  A narrow passageway led the length of the rear addition. Ralph turnedthe knob of the second door he reached. He found he had correctlylocated the apartment he had viewed from the alley.

  Mort Bemis looked up as Ralph closed the door behind him. He startedand stared. Ralph came around to the table, sank into the chairdirectly opposite Bemis, and looked him squarely in the face.

  "What are you doing here?" demanded Bemis a surly, suspicious expressioncrossing his features.

  "I came particularly to see you," answered Ralph calmly. "Can I haveyour attention for a minute or two?"

  "Just two of them," growled Bemis.

  Ralph did not scare at the bullying, significant manner of thedischarged leverman.

  "It's just this," he said bluntly: "you visited the switch toweryesterday and came very nearly causing a bad wreck."

  "Who told you so?" demanded Bemis.

  "Oh, there are plenty of witnesses, your former landlady, for one.Another low-down trick was attempted this afternoon, instigated, Ibelieve, by you. Now, Mr. Bemis, this has come to a dead-open-and-shutconclusion."

  "Has it? How?" sneered Mort.

  "I have legitimately succeeded to your position, and I intend to holdit. You seem resolved to discredit and disgrace me. It won't work. Ifyou make one more break in my direction, I shall go to thesuperintendent of the Great Northern, make a formal complaint ofmalicious mischief, and then enter a regular complaint with the police."

  Mort Bemis did not reply. His bluff was gone, for he knew that Ralphmeant every word that he said.

  "There's another thing," pursued Ralph: "you owe a poor widow money thatshe needs, and needs badly. If you have any sense of shame or honor inyour nature, you will find honest work and pay her."

  "I don't want none of your advice!" flared out Bemis. "You've said yoursay! Then get out. I'll keep hands off because I don't fancy beinglocked up, but," he added with a malicious grin, "I can't hold back myfriends from doing what they like."

  "You have had your warning," said Ralph quietly, rising to his feet."I've given you your chance. Leave my affairs alone, if you are wise."

  Ralph started for the door. Suddenly his way was blocked. The personhe had supposed to be asleep, tilted back against the wall in a chair,had roused up with marvelous quickness.

  As this individual threw back his skullcap, he revealed the coarse,bloated face of a boy about two years Ralph's senior. He was apowerfully-built fellow. Ralph remembered having seen him once in thehands of the police after a raid on a chicken fight at the fair grounds.

  "Easy," spoke this person, springing between Ralph and the door, anddoubling up his fists pugilist-fashion. "This gent is my friend, andyou've insulted him."

  "I think not," said Ralph calmly.

  "Do all your thinking quick, then," advised the other, "for I wantsatisfaction."

  The speaker drove at Ralph with one hand. It was a sledge-hammer blow.Ralph whirled half-way across the room.

  His antagonist followed him up quickly. His back now to the window, heput up his fists anew.

  "I wanted some training," he chuckled. "Come up to your punishment. Doyou know who I am?"

  "I do not, and don't care," answered Ralph quickly, nettled out of hisordinary composure by a blow that had nearly knocked the breath out ofhis body.

  "Then you can't read the newspapers. I'm Young Slavin, the juvenileHercules, light-weight champeen. Come, wade in; I give you one chanct."

  "I have no quarrel with you," remarked Ralph. "Stand aside. I wish toleave this room."

  "Ho! ho! When you do, it will be on a shutter."

  "And I shall not let you pound me. I warn you to mind your ownbusiness."

  "Time!" roared the pugilist gloatingly.

  Ralph took in the situation in all its bearings. He realized that heconfronted a young giant. To oppose his prodigious muscular strength ineven battle would be to be hammered to a jelly.

  The occasion called for action, however. Ralph reflected for a bareminute, and then he "waded in."

  With a rush he made a slanting dive for the brutal bully, aimingsquarely for his feet.

  Exercising all the muscle of which he was capable, Ralph grasped hisantagonist's ankles, took him off his guard, gave him a sudden trip, andsent him toppling backwards.

  With a yell of consternation and pain Young Slavin went crashing throughthe window sash.