Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/1091

Rh "I fancied they deserved locking up," remarked Ralph.

"There would have been a murder if you hadn't seen to it," declared Zeph. "I've a story to tell that would make your hair stand on end, but it would take a book to tell it all."

"I'm here to listen, Zeph," intimated Ralph.

"Yes, but I'm due to meet Mr. Adair at the jail. He's sent Evans and Slump back to the prison they escaped from. I hurried on here from the Fordham cut purposely to tell him what I wanted done with Morris."

"I say, Zeph," rallied the young railroader, "you seem to have a big say in such things for a small boy."

"That's all right," declared Zeph good-naturedly; "I'm all here, just the same, and I'm here for a big purpose. In a word, not to mystify you, Ralph, for you know only half of the story, I was hired by Marvin Clark, the son of the Middletown & Western Railroad president, to do all I've done, and I have been royally paid for it."

"Then you must have done something effective," observed Ralph.

"Clark thought so, anyway. I'll try and be brief and to the point, so that you'll understand in a nutshell. You know Marvin Clark and Fred Porter and the two Canaries?"