ed Ralph. "Oh, I see--a cap. Snatched
it from the head of his assailant, I suppose. Hark! they are shooting
up there."

Shots rang out along the cut road. In a few minutes, however, the men
from Brocton reappeared in the cut.

"No use wasting our lives recklessly," said one of them. "They have
bullets, we only small shot. The wagon got away. We'll hurry back to
Brocton, get a regular posse armed with rifles, and search the country
for the rascals."

"What's the damage?" inquired Ralph of the conductor, going to the
side of the car that had been broken open.

"Pretty big, I should say," responded the conductor. "That car had a
consignment of valuable silks from Brown & Banks, in the city, and
they piled a fair load of it into their wagon. You have saved a
wholesale plundering of the car."

The men from Brocton departed. Ralph helped the train crew revive the
poor fellow who had been knocked insensible. They carried him into the
caboose, applied cold water to his head, and soon had him restored to
consciousness.

"Fix the red lights," ordered the conductor to a brakeman, "and then
hurry to Brocton and have them telegraph the train dispatcher. What's
the trouble ahead, Fairbanks?"

Ralph explained. Shovels and crowbars were brought from the caboose,
and two of the train crew accompanied him back to the locomotive.

Ralph thought of the cap he had stuck in his pocket. He looked it over
carefully in the light of the lantern he carried.

On the leather band inside of the cap were two initials in red
ink--"I. S."

"Ike Slump," murmured Ralph.

An old-time enemy had appeared on the scene, and the young fireman of
the Great Northern knew that he would have to keep a sharp lookout or
there would be more trouble.

CHAPTER III

EVERYBODY'S FRIEND

"Stand back there, you fellows!"

"Scatter, boys--it's Ralph Fairbanks!"

It was two days after the landslide near Brocton. The young fireman
had just left the roundhouse at Stanley Junction in a decidedly
pleasant mood. His cheering thoughts were, however, rudely disturbed
by a spectacle that at once appealed to his manly nature.

Ralph, making a short cut for home, had come across a farmer's wagon
standing in an alley at the side of a cheap hotel. The place was a
resort for dissolute, good-for-nothing railway employes, and one of
its victims was now seated, or rather propped up, on the seat of the
wagon in question.

He was a big, loutish boy, and had a