es and peering
ahead, but Ralph was gone. Seizing a lantern, he had jumped to the
ground and was at the front of the locomotive now. The engineer shut
off all steam after sounding the danger signal, a series of several
sharp whistles, and quickly joined his assistant.

In front of the locomotive, obstructing the rails completely, was a
great mass of dirt, gravel and rocks.

"A landslide," spoke Griscom, glancing up one steep side of the cut.

"If we had struck that big rock full force," observed Ralph, "it would
have been a bad wreck."

"You saved us just in time," cried the old engineer. "I've often
wondered if some day there wouldn't be just such a drop as this of
some of these overhanging cliffs. Company ought to see to it. It's
been a fierce rain all the evening, perhaps that loosened the mass."

"Hardly," said Ralph thoughtfully, and then, inspecting a glazed piece
of paper with some printing on it he had just picked up, he looked
queerly at his companion.

"Give them the trouble signal in the caboose, please, Mr. Griscom,"
said the young fireman. "I think I had better get back there at once.
Have you a revolver?"

"Always carry one," responded Griscom.

"Keep it handy, then."

"Eh!" cried the engineer with a stare. "What you getting at, lad?"

"That is no landslide," replied Ralph, pointing at the obstruction.

"What is it then?"

"Train wreckers--or worse," declared Ralph promptly. "There is no time
to lose, Mr. Griscom," he continued in rapid tones.

"Of course, if not an accident, there was a purpose in it," muttered
Griscom, reaching into his tool box for a weapon, "but what makes you
think it wasn't an accident?"

Ralph did not reply, for he was gone. Springing across the coal heaped
up in the tender, he climbed to the top of the first freight car and
started on a swift run the length of the train.

The young fireman was considerably excited. He would not have been a
spirited, wide-awake boy had he been otherwise. The paper he had found
among the debris of the obstruction on the rails had an ominous
sentence across it, namely, "_Handle With Care, Dynamite_."

This, taken in connection with what had at first startled him, made
Ralph feel pretty sure that he had not missed his guess in attributing
the landslide to some agency outside of nature.

While adjusting the air gauge Ralph had noticed a flare ahead, then a
lantern light up the side of the embankment, and then, in the blaze of
a wil