while the
train crew beat out the flames where the cars were on fire.

The Limited Mail made no return trip to Stanley Junction that night.
The following morning, however, when the swamp fire had subsided, the
train was taken back to the Great Northern and then to terminus.

Lyle, the engineer, was found badly burned and delirious in the swamp,
where he would have perished only for the water in which he landed
when he jumped from the locomotive cab. He was taken to a hospital.

There was a great deal of talk about the latest exploit of the young
fireman of the Limited Mail, and Ralph did not suffer any in the
estimation of the railroad people and his many friends.

One evening he came home from an interview with a local lawyer
concerning the interests of his young friend, Earl Danvers.

Ralph felt quite sanguine that he could obtain redress for Earl from
his heartless relations, and was thinking about it when he discovered
his mother pacing up and down the front walk of the house in an
agitated, anxious way.

"Why, mother," said Ralph, "you look very much distressed."

"I am so, truly," replied Mrs. Fairbanks. "Ralph, we have met with a
great loss."

"What do you mean, mother?"

"The house has been burglarized."

"When?"

"Some time during the past three hours. I was on a visit to a sick
neighbor, and returned to discover the rear door open. I went inside,
and all the papers in the cabinet and some money we had there were
gone."

"The papers?" exclaimed Ralph.

"Yes, every document concerning our claim against Gasper Farrington is
missing."

"But what of Earl Danvers?" inquired Ralph. "Was he away from home?"

"He was when I left, but he must have returned during my absence."

"How do you know that?" asked Ralph.

"The cap he wore when he went away I found near the cabinet."

Ralph looked serious and troubled.

"I hope we have not been mistaken in believing Earl to be an honest
boy," he said, and his mother only sighed.

Then Ralph began investigating. The rear door, he found, had been
forced open. All the rooms and closets had been ransacked.

"This is pretty serious, mother," he remarked.

Earl Danvers did not return that day. This troubled and puzzled Ralph.
He could not believe the boy to be an accomplice of Farrington, nor
could he believe that he was the thief.

Next morning Ralph reported the loss to the town marshal. When he went
down the road, he threw off a note where the men were